Medieval Hermit Monks
Michael Barrington, “My year as a hermit,” Broadview.org, July 21, 2025, at https://tinyurl.com/497x2kvp.
After 10 years as a busy missionary priest in Africa, I was driven to spend some time in silence, prayer and solitude. I had spent three of those years in Nigeria, witness to unspeakable horrors and atrocities during its civil war. Delivering aid was a matter of life and death. Once, in 1972, at a checkpoint on a jungle road, a group of drunken soldiers stood me up to be shot. Only my ability to speak a local language saved me and the others in my group.
I didn’t just feel I wanted to seek respite; it was something I knew I must do. Nor did I know where it would lead or for how long, but I imagined it would be for a week or two. So I asked my Father Superior for permission, then wrote to the abbot of a Trappist monastery in Portglenone, Northern Ireland, asking if I could become an “instant monk” in his community. He agreed, and Father Jim, the novice master, became my mentor and guide.
I fit easily into a daily schedule of prayer and study, work and sleep, each marked by the sound of a bell. My body, however, needed time to adjust to the new regimen of going to bed at 8 p.m. and rising at 2:45 a.m. to attend prayers 15 minutes later.
I entered deeply into the spirit and rhythm of the place and even learned a little of the Trappist sign language the monks used to avoid speaking. But instead of bringing me silence and solitude, the busyness of the monastery felt noisy. My spirit was calling for something else.
The monastery sat on about 120 hectares of pasture, where Brother Colum managed a herd of hundreds of cattle, a main source of the community’s revenue. It housed 38 monks and a hermit, Father Kevin, who lived in a small caravan hidden in a wood. Father Kevin, tall and bearded, arrived each Sunday to celebrate mass with us and share the main meal, all in silence. Likely in his late 40s — more than a decade older than I was — he’d been a hermit for about 17 years.
I knew I needed a spiritual guide, so asked the abbot if Father Kevin might agree to act in that role. “You can certainly ask,” he said, “but it’s highly unlikely he will agree. He has always refused such requests.”
Father Kevin, skinny and tanned from working outdoors, looked surprised as he opened the door. “Come on in,” he said softly, then added almost apologetically, “I only have one chair, so what if we both sit on the floor?” The place was sparsely furnished but orderly and very clean. “I saw you in the cloister a few weeks ago and wondered who you were,” he murmured.
I wasn’t sure how to begin. I explained why I’d come to the monastery, that I had no idea how long I would stay and that a spiritual hunger was drawing me deeper into a world of silence and reflection. I spoke for more than an hour.
“Why don’t we pray together for a while,” he said and, without waiting for me to answer, moved to the end of the room, where he had a small altar with a tabernacle in the centre covered in colourful Gaelic designs. He squatted on the floor in front of it, and I sat beside him. I’ve no idea how long we prayed in silence since neither of us was wearing a watch; I’d removed mine the day I arrived. The monastery bell rang in the steeple, signalling that the choir monks would be going to the chapel to recite their short mid-afternoon prayers. Father Kevin got up to retrieve his prayer book, and together we recited the Psalms.
“Michael,” he said, “I think the Holy Spirit is telling you something, and you need to respond. I suggest you ask the abbot if you can live in the small hermitage near the river and see where the Lord leads you. I feel certain your vocation is not that of a hermit, but, just like the Lord, you may be called for 40 days into the desert.”
I was shocked. “But even if he approves,” I responded, “I’m sure he’ll want some assurance that I meet with a spiritual director regularly. What should I say? You’re the only person I’ve spoken to. Will you be my guide?”
Father Kevin took a long pause. Then, speaking hesitantly, he replied, “First of all, Michael, I’ve nothing to offer you; I, too, am searching. Tell him if he agrees, we will meet and pray together for an hour each week.”
So, armed with a small library of books (I was interested in Eastern Orthodox spirituality and intended to do some research), several notebooks, a collection of spiritual and educational cassette tapes, a stack of magazines, a stock of food and a few sets of clothing, I headed out across the fields to my hermitage.
It was a small wooden shed, just over three metres square, with a tiny window, a one-ring gas burner for cooking, a simple wooden table, a small electric lamp, a plug for my tape recorder, a chair, a prayer stool and a wooden bunk bed. In one corner were three narrow shelves for my clothes, and hooks to hang my working clothes and religious habit. The River Bann was just 15 metres away.
I divided my day into three parts in the traditional way: prayer (meditation, spiritual reading, religious study) for eight hours, manual work for seven, sleep for seven and food preparation and other tasks for two. I drank black tea or water and ate twice a day. My main meal was a hearty vegetable soup.
Since I could hear the monastery bells throughout the day, I always knew what time it was. At night, a single bell rang inside the monastery to wake the monks but not people in the surrounding villages or me. I borrowed a small alarm clock so I, too, could get up for the first prayer of the day. After celebrating mass on my own at 7 a.m. and eating a light breakfast, I began my manual work.
I had arranged with Brother Colum to work on the farm. That meant cleaning ditches, seemingly by the mile, trimming and laying hedges, repairing fences, building new ones, installing fence posts, planting trees, scything weeds and any other work he required. Every day I dressed for work, hiked across the meadow and checked my message box for work instructions and tools if needed. Every night, once the monks had retired, I walked to the monastery, took a shower and replenished my supplies. An hour later, I, too, was in bed. I met with Father Kevin every Friday for an hour. On Sundays, I attended community mass and joined in the silent midday meal. With no manual work that day, I wrote letters, prayed and studied.
(Continued in Part 3.)