Serene and If you need some time alone to think and mediate, this is your spot. These cookies are essential to our website working properly. Simple gorgeous grounds and a beautiful day. At 3:20 a.m. they gather for Matins, chanting the Psalms for an hour with a long break for silence. [CDATA[// > Bono) would put it, I still hadnt found what I was looking for. Nonetheless, Mass at the abbey packs an emotional wallop. Pray. in November make you reservation via the web in October it fills up fast. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. We called him Father Butter ever thereafter. One is from Thomas Merton, the most famous Trappist. Now the books suggested by the monks are helping to change my life. Our church in Boone, North Carolina, was rarely open when he wasnt there, ministering and serving and encouraging. The holiday season arrives early each year at a Trappist monastery on a quiet bluff upriver from Charleston, S.C. We took a tour of Mepkin Abbey and it cost $5 per person. Once several of the Boone Methodists processed out of their choir stalls and into the procession of monks for the liturgy. Needless to say, bring along a camera. And its not backbreaking work, because were an older community., (In the 1950s, when their numbers were higher and the average age was much lower, the monks working life was more varied and physically intense; they ran a lumber mill, raised cattle and had a large-scale bakery.). Mepkin Abbey: Our Wedding - See 138 traveler reviews, 104 candid photos, and great deals for Moncks Corner, SC, at Tripadvisor. But in 2007, in the aftermath of an immensely disruptive PETA investigation, the abbey announced plans to phase out its egg operation. I first met Jessica while I was working a full-time job before I went full time with photography! That sense of acceptance was affirmed by Rob Hagan, who spent 30 years as a monk at Mepkin before leaving the monastery in 2007. They looked, to our untutored eyes, like Jedi. Guided tours ($5 per person) are offered at 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, except on any Friday designated a Desert Day . [CDATA[// >