A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY OF CHRIST THE WORD FR TERENCE RICHARDSON OSB
2021–2022 was the silver jubilee year of the Monastery of Christ the Word in Zimbabwe. This monastery was founded from Ampleforth Abbey in 1996 and it was the first Benedictine community to be founded in the country. Unfortunately, the jubilee occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, on 25th September 2021 Archbishop Robert Ndlovu of Harare, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, the Papal Nuncio to Zimbabwe, and Bishop Paul Horan O.Carm., Bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Mutare, came to join the monks for a special Mass to mark the silver jubilee of the first Benedictine monastery in Zimbabwe. Because of the COVID pandemic, the number attending had to be restricted to one hundred, and most of these had to sit in the garden outside the chapel, safely spaced apart. Because of the restriction on numbers it was decided to try to live-stream the Mass. In a rural area of an African country this is asking a lot of the infrastructure, but fortunately both the electrical supply and the internet connection remained live throughout the Mass. Hundreds of people were able to tune in to the Mass on YouTube, or even to watch it later. It was particularly sad that no-one, especially Abbot Robert, could come from Ampleforth Abbey, but the monks there were able to at least watch the live-stream. Though the Monastery of Christ the Word is the first Benedictine monastery in the country, it is not in fact the first monastic presence. In 1882 a Trappist Abbey had been founded at Mariannhill in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, by the Austrian Abbot Franz Pfanner. Recognising the need for evangelisation, they adapted their Trappist customs and became missionaries. In 1896 they opened a mission at Triashill, 40km south-east of Rusape, only for them to have to close the mission four years later due to the Shona uprising. In 1902 the monks returned to Rhodesia, this time to a farm about 7km south-east of Macheke railway station (the railway line from the Mozambique coast at Beira through Umtali (Mutare) to Fort Salisbury (Harare) having been completed in 1899). The farm had been negotiated for by Abbot Pfanner with Cecil John Rhodes himself. They named this new mission Monte Cassino after St Benedict’s own monastery between Rome and Naples in Italy. Community life began on the site on 4th October 1902. In 1909 the Trappist monks were joined by the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood, a congregation also founded by Abbot Pfanner to assist in the work of evangelisation and education. The Trappists from Mariannhill became a separate congregation (the Mariannhill Missionaries) in 1909. They remained at Monte Cassino until the 1920s when there was an exchange of mission territories with the Jesuits. But the Missionary Sisters
36 THE AMPLEFORTH JOURNAL 2021-2022