Illuminating the Web


	Brother Michael, an artist in the World Wide Web scriptorium at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, works on an illuminated text that will be scanned and posted on the monks' website. (Photograph by Tony O'Brien)

t. Benedict himself would feel right at home at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. Following the ascetic rule prescribed by their founder 15 centuries ago, the monks at the northern New Mexico retreat organize their days around prayer, work, and reflection.

The nature of some of the work might throw St. Benedict, though.

Each day, Brother Mary Aquinas rows to work at the monastery from his hermitage across the Chama River. But as other monks bend themselves to traditional crafts such as weaving and candlemaking, Brother Aquinas supervises brothers performing a modern version of an ancient art, illuminating sacred texts. Instead of the parchment, ink, and gold leaf used in medieval times, these monks work with solar-powered computers, cellular modems, and scanners; instead of crafting handmade volumes for monastic libraries, they're creating Web pages and other graphic art for their website and for outside clients.


	The brothers bow their heads during lauds, a prayer service held at dawn and one of seven held each day. (Photograph by Tony O'Brien)


	The monks have plenty of work to do offline, too; here, they're framing the monastery's new cloister. (Photograph by Tony O'Brien)

The self-supporting monastery embraced the Web out of need: The number of brothers at the Benedictine outpost was increasing rapidly. "Existing income from our guesthouse and crafts weren't enough to support ourselves and expand the monastery," Brother Aquinas says. "Web design seemed the ideal solution. We can stay in the middle of nowhere, adapt the work schedule to our monastic routine, and make a living at it." But besides providing income, adds Brother Aquinas, the online scriptorium is a "beautifully human" way of using new tools to pursue traditional spiritual goals.

"It is our duty as persons in the image of God the Creator to be as productively creative as possible in our work. Not to make use of technology would be negligence of our vocation." The online scriptorium has brought the monastery a wave of time-consuming publicity. But even that has its good side. The Vatican, having looked over the monks' shoulders, has asked them to design its official website.

http://www.christdesert.org/pax.htm