(This was written by Sr. Bonitas last November.  We post it now since it is garden time.)

 Thank you all for all


Who could even dream that I would one day be a farmer, I, a total city girl growing amid buildings, cars, peoples and noises, computers, movies, rock music and soccer games. All my experience about “farming” was hanging around my daddy when he took care of a little flower patch at a corner of our house. Only a grammar school girl I was at that time. More “active” involvement in farming though happened during my college years, way, way back. A bunch of sisters helped a farming sister during the summer break and I was one of them for two years. That was all.

Yet, with some reason that I don’t quite know, whenever I, as a kid, went to visit my grandparents’ home in a country side, I was taken into the surroundings there—mountains, fields, small streams running around, trees of pine and oak, and the sound of cows and dogs. However, the thing that I enjoyed most was smell--the wet smell of moss and fallen leaves from the woods, the burning smell of smoke from the evening chimney...the smells of country side. Among all the smells, the smell that caught me deep was, believed or not, the smell of manure, the cow manure. Strangely, I felt that that smell of manure would heal all my hidden illness if there were any. So I stood at the open yard of my grandparents’ house and inhaled deep the smell and exhaled all the sickness within me out to the end of my breathing. Did this naïve imagination of childhood have an impact on me?

One day about five years ago, I asked Mother Agnes, “When you need somebody for the farm, would you, please, remember me?”  Did I develop a strong desire for farming over the years? Or, all of a sudden, nostalgia for farm arose within me? Compassion. It was simply from my compassion toward our farm.

At that time, our monastery couldn’t afford enough hands for the farm and it looked abandoned to my eyes. I felt sorry for it and that was my courage to ask. Maybe, my status of transferring from one community to here, Wrentham, added some courage too. I was more aware of monastic tradition and spirituality than any other times, and farming came to me with much values. Apart from these, just watching someone working in the garden or taking care of grounds gave me a deep sense of peace, serenity and stability. Besides, our monastery had the best condition for farming--a continual supply of sheep manure and grass clippings. I almost thought that it was sin if we were not farming.

Anyway, I don’t know if Mother Agnes remembered my wish or not. Two years later, I was assigned to the garden – a half time helper; then, the next year, that was two years ago, had the charge of it. Now, I became a gardener. But, -- O, God, have mercy on me! – what should I do, I, a total city girl who knew nothing about farming?!

However, when I became the charge, I did not have much fear because Sr. Edith, the former charge, was still with me. Rather, a single wish was born in my heart--Serving sisters with fresh vegetables, grown by one of their own sisters’ hand from their own land although it could be only during the growing season. No bought vegetables, no chemical fertilizer, no toxic pesticide.

I started to grow every single vegetable with my whole care and blessing, with a great reverence and love. I was dealing with life itself of vegetables, of sisters, of the land, and of the whole cosmos; an opportunity to be a God’s faithful steward. I wanted all garden works and products be God’s blessing so that when sisters eat the vegetables, they are not eating only the fresh vegetables but God’s blessings also along with my love for them.

Although I had a good wish, I had to depend on Sr. Edith heavily because I had no idea at all when to sow, how to sow, when to transplant and how to, when to harvest and how to…etc. I carefully watched Sr. Edith doing things and, at the same time, attempted this and that in my own way to see how they worked. O, how I love Sr. Edith and how much I owe her in many ways. The other day I asked her to pill the turnips which were eaten by worms. I didn’t want any other sisters see them but her. She said, “Always bad ones to me…!” What a sweet remark it was that she rarely makes. By those few words, she was saying, “I know, O you little one, why you ask that work particularly of me. I will gladly do it for you. It’s my joy. Thank you that you trust me and feel comfortable. And I trust you too and love you.”

One thing that helped me in gardening was my intuition. I somehow felt the vegetables, their likings and dislikings. Whenever I felt that they might like or need something and provided it, I could see them soon after become shining happy and growing into their full capacity. Another thing that surprised me was my very self. I didn’t know that I would like farming that much!

I am rather a small person--only 5 feet and 1 inch high, not weighing even a hundred pounds. I don’t know how people think of farming. But, before I became a full time farmer, I thought of farming as a quiet, leisure work. Sitting under the warm sun with a nice breeze on my cheeks, surrounded by stillness of the mother nature feeling the soft soil between my fingers … you are most peacefully picking beans…. I did not know that before and after that “peaceful picking,” there should be heavy works done. And, even that “peaceful picking” itself was not a light work at all. It hurt my back.

Anyway, with all these heavy work of shoveling manure and digging the ground day after day, my body still did not get worn out! Yes, it is true that I buried my body into the bed right after compline, though thanking God and entrusting all things of the day into his hand. However, the next morning, I woke up with a fresh body and spirit and joyfully ran out to the garden again, praising God for another day to serve!

This year, the third year as a charge and the fourth year in the farm, I have a little more confidence than past years. Now I have a better sense of what to do and when to do and how to do. I planed ahead carefully with varieties of vegetables so that sisters could enjoy different kind of things.

It was truly awe to watch those little tiny seeds sprouting out from the soil like baby’s fingers wiggling and then growing into their forms. Garden became a full chorus of springing life, hidden mystery and sacred labor. Although the weather was quiet dry this year, our garden went through all right and did a wonderful job – a bounty of God. We could provide all the necessary vegetables for the community during the growing season and even up until now, the middle of November. No bought vegetables, no chemical fertilizer, no toxic pesticide. All our crops were so clean that we didn’t even need to wash them. But I should confess that I couldn’t help cabbages and corns without organic spray. I was told that organic sprays were made of all kinds of herbs and plants and do no harm to human and to the nature. But even with that, I got tired of it at the end of harvest and gave up spraying. I cried out to God, “O, Lord, I cannot do this any longer. I am sick to kill the worms. Please, take care of these worms!”  And I threw away the bottle. Did God hear me? Later, when we picked the corns, I didn’t find much worm. I trembled, thinking a miracle happened. After finishing picking the corns, my co-worker that day, our postulant Eve-Marie sat down and started to take out graciously something out of her upper shirt’s pocket. O, my goodness….Worms!! She so quietly and naturally picked all the worms by her bare fingers and gathered them in her pocket, I did not even notice it! I looked at her with full admiration because I still couldn’t touch the worms. Anyway, does anybody have any “Know-how” how to grow corns and cabbages without worm? Please, share the secret with me.

Even with all kinds of happenings, there came this year’s strong, survived crops. Asparagus showed up first, then 5 different kinds of lettuces came followed by strawberries, salad spinach, New Zealand spinach, onions, carrots, garlics, green peas, Swiss Chard, green beans, celeries, peppers, chives, leeks, radishes, zucchinis, squashes of acorn, buttercup and butternut, watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew, rhubarb, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, cauliflowers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries and Sr. Marcia’s grapes and herbs…. What an abundance of God and a miracle of a total city girl! Basket after baskets, bushel after bushels, this after that…. Sr. Maureen, our food housekeeper, once told me, “Every morning when I went down to the cooler with a cart to get vegetables, I feel like coming for the Christmas shopping. Wow—wow—wow!!! What should I take first?”

Among all these crops, strawberries, rhubarbs, tomatoes, corns and green beans were sisters’ delights of this year. Actually, these are always favored. The winner’s prize of this year was, though, the huge pumpkins sown solely for Sr. Janise. Last year, she asked me last year “a” pumpkin, not even two. So I planted “a” pumpkin seed that I found from an old box. It grew wild and bore three huge pumpkins and a few small ones. The huge ones were so heavy that even two sisters together could not lift. We had to roll them to move. Sisters came out to the garden to see those huge pumpkins, saying that they have never seen that huge pumpkins before. I had never seen either anything like that. I just marveled at what I was looking at and murmured to myself, “What is happening here….!” Our novices enjoyed carving them for Halloween and we enjoyed novices carving them in the cloister garth. Green grass, orange pumpkins and shiny faces…it was itself a beautiful picture. But, the delight of delights, the prize of prizes of this year was absolutely the hearts, the hearts of sisters--loving, caring, lavishing….

One day I was passing by a sister who was peelling carrots that had ugly shapes. I said, “I’m sorry. Not a good shape. Hard to peel…” She briskly shook her hand and said, “Oh, no! They are beautiful. They are! I treasure everything and anything that you grow.” When beans were coming all together, Sr. Andree was snapping the steams. One day she said to me, showing her second finger with her beautiful smile, “I have pain on my finger. I snapped too many beans. But I just enjoy it. O, I love it!” Actually I had the same pain on my finger too, but mine was from too much picking. Another day right before Halloween, two sisters coming back from shopping told me, “When we went to a farmer’s shop, we saw a lot of pumpkins there but they were almost nothing in comparison with ours. So we told the man there that our pumpkins were best. Then the man explained to us how farmers fertilized pumpkins to make them huge and nice. So we told him, ‘Our sister grows them with love!’”

Another heart that touched me was that of a sister who a little tractor everyday needed but let me use it freely whenever I needed it and she herself worked by hand… There were also the hearts that, although she needed every single hand at this crucial time of making candies, still offered me so generously helping hands and the heart that noticed works needed to be done in the garden and provided necessary helps even before I asked… How about the hearts that did not care for by nature much of any vegetables but still took them to their dishes only because one of their sisters grew them. There were appreciative hearts too that enjoyed the beauty of the garden between the times sitting quietly around the garden or taking pictures of it… Oh, how can I write down all the beautiful hearts that I experienced through farming!

With all these, is it, then, still true that the city girl did the garden? Is that she who made it in such abundance? That’s what all the sisters said to me…. “Oh, you did a marvelous job!” “What a beautiful garden you have!” “Thank you for all the wonderful vegetables! They taste so different from bought ones” … I almost thought that “I” did it. But here comes the truth.

“If, I, the farmer, had a great desire for farming to serve sisters with fresh vegetables but Mother did not wish to keep the vegetable garden, the farmer is nothing.
If I grew the most excellent vegetables in the world, but the food housekeeper did not assign them on menu, the farmer is nothing.
If the food housekeeper assigned them on menu wasting nothing but treasuring everything, yet the cook did not make a nice dish out of it, the farmer is nothing.
If the cook wished to make the choicest dishes out of them giving full play to her genius, but there were no sisters who clean them before hand for cooking, the farmer is nothing.
If the sisters were eager to prepare the vegetables nicely for cooking but the product itself was not good at all, the farmer is noting.
If the vegetables wanted to grow healthy and beautiful to their full capacity but there was no sheep manure and precious grass clippings, the farmer is nothing.
If the sheep manure and grass clippings were ready to serve their best ‘even to the death,’ but there was no one who kindly gathered and brought them near the garden, the farmer is nothing.
If the soil was perfectly prepared with manure and grass clippings but there was no one who went out to buy seeds, the farmer is nothing.
If that joyful sister ran out and found the best seeds for us but there were not enough helpers for the garden, the farmer is nothing.
If our most caring work coordinator assigned the most excellent helpers to the garden and they came with tender growing hands and eager hearts but the weather was not favorable, the farmer is nothing.
If God provided with perfect rain and sun and the farmer had everything to grow, to harvest, to cook and to serve but there was no one who wished to enjoy them, the farmer is but a miserable nothing.
So it was not me who gardened but all of us--the farmer, the sisters and God. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.”(I Cor 3, 6) All of us, all together made it, the miracle of our garden. Therefore, the farmer, all the sisters, and God, remain, these three, but the greatest of these miracle workers is ‘Love.’”(I Cor. 13)

All these touching experiences of loving hearts brought me down to the trembling fact that we are truly living a mystical body of Christ; “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts of one another.”(Rom 12, 5) “All things work for good for those who love God.”(Rom 8, 28)

Yesterday, three of our postulants and I completed the last mission for the garden this year, namely, covering strawberry and asparagus beds…with what…? Of course, the fresh hay sheep “MANURE!” Ooh~~ that smell!

      Heal, O, you sweet smell of manure, all the world from the modern chemical, technological sickness!
      Overflow, O, the loving hearts of my most beloved sisters of Mr. St. Mary’s Abbey, over the walls of the monastery into the hearts of our brothers and sisters all over the world to share ‘life’ with them.
      May, O, God, our true farmer, be glorified in all things!
      And I, a humble farmer, thank YOU all for all from my heart.