Write an account of the life of a monk in a Celtic monastery. (Page 47)

A Monk in a Celtic Monastery

 My name is Patrick. I am a monk living in Glendalough. St Kevin set the monastery up hundreds of years ago. I became a monk twelve years ago in 756AD and have been living and working here in Glendalough since then. I became a monk because I wanted to spend my life serving God. Life here is hard and I sometimes miss my family. But we monks have great faith in God and believe we are doing the right thing.

Our monastery looks like a ring fort. It is surrounded by a ditch to keep us safe from attack. Inside the ditch we have several buildings. All the buildings are arranged around our small stone church, where we spend a lot of time praying. Beside the church there is a graveyard where monks who have died over the years are buried.  Each monk has a single stone cell where he sleeps at night. We eat together in the refectory.

Each monk has his own job to do in our monastery. The Abbot is in charge of us all and we obey all his rules. Our day is spent praying and working. Some monks work on the farm and provide us with all the food we eat. Other monks do the cooking and make our clothes. We all help out with building jobs around the monastery.

I am a scribe so my work is mostly done in the scriptorium. I work there with two other monks. One of them is an older man. He was a monk at the monastery at Iona in Scotland when he was younger. He told me about a beautiful manuscript the monks there had made. He also talks about a very old manuscript that the O Donnell clan have. They call it the Cathach because they take it into battle with them. Every day the three of use work on manuscripts. We make copies of the Bible and other holy books. Sometimes we write out the old Celtic stories as well. We write on vellum and parchment with quills. It takes a long time to make a manuscript. We decorate the letters and add colourful designs.

Some of our monks are very skilled metal workers. They make beautiful chalices, book shrines, gold crosses and other holy objects. They decorate their work with precious stones. We also have monks who are very good stone masons. They make high crosses with scenes from the Bible craved onto them. The local people cannot read or write so the crosses help us to teach them about Christianity.

Sometimes monks from Britain and Europe come to study here at Glendalough. They tell us that the Christian religion is not strong in Europe at the moment and that art and learning are not flourishing there. I am thinking of going to work as a missionary in Europe. If the abbot allows me I will go abroad to teach the people about Christianity.