Rémy Rougeau

Daylight-saving time: I could live without it. Every April—and on through most of May—I wake 20 minutes before the morning bell. Ridiculous. One would think I'd accidentally sleep in, since advancing clocks force all of us to rise earlier.

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Actually, the morning bell is not a bell at all, though we're in the habit of calling it one. The monastic community wakes nowadays to an electric buzzer, harsh enough to rattle your teeth, something more suitable to a prison or an industrial school. Think of tripped alarms: an unnerving shock.

Meanwhile, the old bell hangs silent in the stairwell. Every now and again its bucolic clang is heard when the electricity goes out. On hot summer days, when clouds roil over the prairie, sometimes the electricity blinks off and that beautiful bell comes into service. It's far more effective than a buzzer. It can be heard in every corner of the house. And its rich sound seems more appropriate to wake and call people to prayer.

Other bells are used here. The abbey owns three massive tower bells that on special occasions are rung. They have deep, rich tones. These bells must be pulled by ropes thick as your arm, and only after many yanks do they get going. You work up a sweat. And if you should fail to let go, the rope will pull you 20 feet into the air. Brother Phillip, when he was still alive, rang those bells.

Nowadays, for the sake of convenience, we depend upon an electric carillon; it automatically rings the Angelus, peals for Lauds as well as for Vespers and for Mass, and can be switched on to toll for funerals. Some of our novices and juniors would love to yank on the real bell ropes, but there are bathrooms to clean, floors to scrub, cows to feed, dishes to wash, lawns to mow. We can't afford to have a "bell" brother anymore.

I remember Phillip when I wake before morning bell. He was more faithful than a machine. Every day, for more than 50 years, he distributed mail, made out a weather report, and rang bells. He had a lovely, innocent smile. I asked him once why he joined the abbey and he said, "Why not?" I suppose he thought the question was rather foolish.

In this area of the Great Plains there is a small community of Carmelite nuns. If you visit them, they speak to you through an iron grill and never about frivolous things. They rise at midnight to pray the office of Vigils. Two lovely bells announce every prayer period in the Carmelite day, and they are always rung by hand. These nuns, by the way, ignore daylight-saving time. "It doesn't suit us," they explained to me. Theirs is a world apart, even more so than ours.

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