Spiritual wellness on vacation in a monastery

Combine a monastery holiday with water fun? This is possible in the Laacher Seetal near Koblenz. The largest lake in Rhineland-Palatinate and the surrounding lands are owned by the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach. There is a monastic boat rental, a swimming area, and anglers can land big pike.

The Benedictine monastery also runs a hotel by the lake, a beer garden and a restaurant; there is also a nursery, a sculpture workshop, a ceramics factory and even its own combined heat and power plant.

But if you are looking for a more monastic, contemplative ambience, you can also book retreat days in the monastery and stay in the guest wing of St. Gilbert, named after the founding abbot. The magnificent three-aisled church with six towers is the heart of Maria Laach and is considered one of the most beautiful Romanesque monuments in Germany.

Special features include the underground crypt and the porch, the so-called Paradise: a 13th-century atrium with open arcades. It is the only surviving atrium paradise north of the Alps, in the inner courtyard with a garden and lion fountain. In the arcades there are filigree capital sculptures such as the "Laacher Teufelchen", which notes the sins of the people on a parchment. The visitors should enter almost purified.

The motto of the hosts is: come to rest. "The regular daily rhythm, the alternation of church services and meals, personal seclusion and friendly contact is experienced as beneficial and healing," says the guest flyer. One can participate in multi-day creative seminars, meditations and retreats.

The bookbinding courses (two days from 165 euros) are unique, particularly popular and quickly booked up. You start with a guided tour of the monastery and the Jesuit library. In the Maria Laach Abbey there was a scriptorium (writing room) and a glutinator, which then bound the books, since the 12th century. Brother Jakobus has taken over the bookbinding since 2012.

There are also "self-love" seminars by a meditation and Reiki teacher (three days from 275 euros). The simply furnished single room costs from 64 euros per night with full board from the monastery kitchen. In Maria Laach, clergy are available for individual discussions. The 2G rule applies, guests must be proven to have been vaccinated or recovered.

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Its location alone is heavenly. In a loop of the Danube, protected by 60 meter high cliffs, stands the Benedictine monastery of Weltenburg with one of the most magnificent baroque churches in Europe, built between 1716 and 1739. The rocks of petrified coral reefs, the Kelheim marble limestone, rise directly out of the water. Some bizarre rock formations have names like "Napoleon's suitcase" or the "stone maiden".

According to tradition, the Weltenburg monastery near Kelheim was founded in this unique location, protected by rocks, by the wandering monks Eustasius and Agilus von Luxeuil around the year 620, making it the oldest monastery complex in Bavaria. In summer you can arrive by boat from Kelheim, take the cable ferry or the Ziller boats, the traditional fishing boats. With them you can cross from the opposite bank to the monastery between April and September.

After a guided tour, most day trippers go to the "Klosterschenke" with a beer garden to order an award-winning baroque dark. Because Weltenburg is also the oldest monastery brewery in the world. It has been documented that monks brewed beer here for almost a thousand years, namely since 1050. Today it is exported all over the world. The Weltenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel has already been awarded the World Beer Cup as the best dark beer in the world three times.

For guests who want to stay a few spiritual days, the Benedictine monks offer "courses for spiritual contemplation", but also very creative seminars such as icon painting courses, fresco painting and Gregorian chant courses.

The night is not spent in the monastery itself (the seven monks in the convent keep to themselves), but in the neighboring guest house of St. George or the Prelature. The 57 rooms are furnished in a simple, monastic style with a bed, wardrobe and desk. There are also double rooms for couples, albeit with single beds. No TV, by the way, but with free WiFi.

Two nights with breakfast and supper (Weltenburg snack plate with half a liter of dark baroque wine) in the dining rooms in the prelature cost from 124 euros per person. Table water from the hotel's own spring is free. Night rest from 10 p.m. The Abbey Church of St. George is open to guests every day, and guests can also retreat to the chapels of St. Nicholas and St. Magdalena for prayer. No guided tours are possible in the premises and gardens of the monastery.

The monastic pebble beach is approved for this. “The Danube beach is our wellness area. Foot massages through smoothly ground pebbles, treading water in the shallow Danube water according to Pastor Kneipp or simply sunbathing,” is the motto of the Benedictines. However: Bathing is forbidden in this section, not for reasons of piety, but because of the dangerous current.

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The abbey of the Engelthal monastery is located in Altenstadt in the middle of the Wetterau near Frankfurt/Main. The Benedictines have only been living in the former Cistercian monastery since 1962. They see themselves as an innovative community at a historic monastery site from the 13th century that operates as ecologically as possible.

Their goal: to become an exemplary monastery in terms of climate and environmental protection. Since 2013 there have been solar systems, a wood pellet heating system, and the water comes from the baroque fountain, which has been uncovered again. There is an apiary and an organic orchard; Bird nesting boxes hang everywhere, and the old trees on the land are protected, as are the bats in the walls. The Benedictines would like to develop the monastery area as a biotope.

Hospitality comes first. Relatives and friends of the sisters are also often invited; this is not common in every order. The 16 Benedictine nuns offer many retreats, meditation courses and days of reflection in the monastery for guests. “The need for mindfulness, silence and stillness is growing. Many people long for her and come to the guest house of our monastery in search of it,” they say. Popular: a day of silence, a whole week of silence, and ora et labora weeks with prayer and gardening.

The garden and the church are accessible to guests, but not the cloister area. There are single and double rooms with showers in the former baroque abbess house. An overnight stay in a single room with full board in the dining room costs from 65 euros.

As an alternative, the monastery now also offers digital retreat weekly courses for at home, there are daily audio files with guided meditations, lectures by Sister Maria Magdalena, prayers and, if desired, daily accompanying discussions by telephone or zoom, from 160 euros.

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Fields as far as the eye can see, a few farmhouses: even the little village of Varensell near Rietberg in the Westphalian province seems like a place of peace. Right in the middle: Varensell Abbey.

The 35 Benedictine nuns live a much more secluded life than their sisters from Hesse; they hardly ever leave the walled monastery, not even to the mailbox on the opposite side of the wall.

The monastery, founded in 1902, is a self-sufficient religious order. The nuns live almost exclusively from what they earn through their work. There is a farm with pigs and chickens, a fruit and vegetable garden. A Benedictine rule is: "If possible, the monastery should be laid out in such a way that everything necessary is within the monastery." Only bread, dairy products and fish are delivered.

The nuns keep to themselves at mealtimes. You want to be silent. Visitors dine separately in a dining room, sometimes joined by the pastor. Time-outs such as days of silence, yoga, singing Gregorian chant, meditative archery and weekly stays for praying and working together are offered - such as washing dishes in the kitchen or weeding in the garden.

A single room in the St. Benedikt guest house costs from 59 euros including four meals. According to the website, 2G plus applies here; only those who have been fully vaccinated or have recovered can be admitted; a daily negative rapid test is also required.

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Drübeck Abbey is a former Catholic Benedictine abbey in Ilsenburg on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Saxony-Anhalt. It was first mentioned in a document of King Otto I in 960.

In the turmoil of the Reformation it was abandoned and partly set on fire, rebuilt in 1687 as a Protestant women's monastery in the half-timbered style. It is famous for its Romanesque church and the monastery garden with linden trees and chestnut trees that was laid out in the 17th century.

Today it is a conference center of the evangelical church where pastors are trained. His "House of Silence" is open to guests who are looking for a break. There are retreat days with yoga, fasting or with silence, with meditation - as well as "breathing and physical work in the monastery gardens".

Two nights with course fee and full board cost from 142 euros. The "Shabbat days", which take place once a month, are quickly booked out, a break from everyday life with prayer, silence and walking meditation in the garden, from 65 euros per night in a double or single room with WLAN.

kloster-druebeck.de

This article was first published in December 2021.