Scottish Catholic Observer

ACN, which is helping to pay for construction of a new monastery in Tabgha, Israel, recently received a progress update on the construction work from Fr Jeremias Marseille OSB, a member of the German Benedictine community living there.

“The construction is going well, we are almost finished with the cells, then we will start the west-wing of the new monastery including the new oratory,” he said. “We hope and plan to finish the skeleton construction work of the whole monastery in October, and we hope to move in at the end of May next year.”

The Benedictine monks are custodians of the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish, which marks the site of the biblical miracle. Fr Marseille gave two reasons for moving the monastery, based at the shores of the Sea of Galilee, which was built without proper foundations in the 1950s.

“The first is that the house in which we live is not safe—in Germany it would have been condemned,” he said. “The rooms have all cracks of 45° in the walls and the house is moving, as we live in an area of earthquakes at the beginning of the Jordan valley. The second reason is more important, we not only need a house—we need a cloister where the monastic life can increase and grow.”

He also described how the monks need a place for retreat and reflection, not only because of the high volume of pilgrims and tourists each day—which at the peak can reach up to 5000—but also because of their ongoing work providing a meeting place for young people with disabilities from Israel and the Westbank.

Fr Marseille told ACN how it is important to withdraw to a quiet place and seek God, which the monastery will provide through its new oratory (chapel).

“Monks and guests need a room where, both day and night, they can find a quiet place to pray which is set apart from the crowds in the surroundings,” he said.

ACN is supporting the building project with more than £43,500 (€50,000) to build the oratory, which the Benedictine monk described as ‘the heart of the new monastery.’

The oratory will be air conditioned, which is essential in an area where outside temperatures can reach 50°C (122°F) during the hottest part of the day in the summer.

The new monastery. which will also be able to withstand the earth tremors that periodically affect the valley, is a community project by the German Association of the Holy Land and the Benedictine Monks. The monastic house at Tabgha is located on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee and is a dependent priory of the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

PICS: (Above and below) Fr Jeremias Marseille with workers on the new building site. (Below) Fr Marseille and brothers chant the Divine Office