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| Abbot Francis Pfanner ORC |
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The year 2009 marked the centenary of Mhatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha “Soul Force”, or non-violent resistance movement. It also marked his 140th anniversary of his birth. Earlier in 2009 a BBC TV crew visited South Africa to shoot a documentary film at the places where Gandhi lived and worked. On March 1, 2009 the crew was in Mariannhill, spending many hours in their attempt to capture such images as Gandhi must have seen when he visited Mariannhill in 1894. In the course of time many of the old buildings were demolished to make place for new structures. But he did see the Monastery church, built in 1887, meant as a provisional church to be replaced later. This, however, never happened because after 1886 mission got priority over a monumental church. The impressions of Mariannhill prompted the Mahatma (Great Soul) to write a lengthy article which forms document 580 of the Speeches and Writings of the South African Gandhi, covering the period 1893-1914, a bulky book of 1 200 pages, edited by Professor Fatima Meer, and published in 1996. At the time of his visit to Mariannhill Gandhi cherished the idea of sarvodaya – the ideal life – which he tried to realize at the ashrams at Phoenix near Durban and later near Johannesburg. Prof Meer states that Gandhi’s ideas appear to have been strongly influenced by the Trappist Monastery. She says tht there is little doubt that it influenced his first ashram in Phoenix. What was it that struck Gandhi in his pursuit of social reform in Mariannhill? He was deeply impressed by the humility of the monks and the nuns, by their vegetarianism, their industry and their friendliness. Gandhi writes: “Mariannhill is a quiet little model village, owned on the truest republican principles. The principle of liberty, equality and fraternity is carried out in its entirety. Every man is a brother, every woman a sister … They take no intoxicating liquors, they discard even eggs… non may keep money for private use. All are equally rich or poor. They believe in no colour discrimination. The blacks are accorded the same treatment as whites… all was quit; the silence was broken only by the noise of the instruments in the workshops or the African children…” For present-day members of Mariannhill who are no more Trappist monks but active missionaries there are some amusing observations. To quote Gandhi: “Pinetown is a little village, situated at a distance of 16 miles by rail from Durban. On our arrival at the settlement one of the brotherhood came up and bowed very low. We were offered tamarind water and pineapples. “After having refreshed ourselves we accompanied our guide to the various places he took us to. The buildings one saw were all substantial red brick buildings.” Gandhi was touched to hear that “the brothers eat no fish, flesh or fowl”. However, he as disappointed to learn that the sisters were allowed to eat meat four days in a week. When he asked the reason for such anomaly, the obliging guide said: “Because the sisters are more delicate than the brothers.” We don’t know Gandhi’s reaction to that statement.
Gandhi: “A Protestant clergyman once said to his audience that the Roman Catholics are weakly, sickly and sad. Well, if he Trappists are any criterion of what a Catholic is, they are, on the contrary, healthy and cheerful. Wherever we went, a beaming smile and a lowly bow greeted us, whether we met a brother or a sister.”
Gandhi and his companion, probably Vincent Lawrence, were shown the dormitory, the dining room and of course the workshops, “where the Africans are taught all useful industries, working side by side with the whites. At the sister cloisters one can see the African girls in clean costumes, working assiduously.” Gandhi was deeply moved when he walked the stations of the cross which he describes in loving detail. “A visit to the Trappists in Mariannhill cannot but produce a lasting holy impression on the mind.” And he concludes: “I know from personal experience that a visit to Mariannhill is worth a voyage from London to Natal.” This last remark fill us, the Missionaries of Mariannhill who are the descendants of these Trappist monks, with the mixed feelings of pride, gratitude but also shame. The overall impression that Gandhi received was a vision of peacefulness, friendliness and industriousness. Yet most probably his guide did not tell him that beneath that smooth surface there raged a violent conflict, namely how to reconcile missionary activity with the very strict demands of the Trappist rule. When Gandhi visited in 1894, the previous year Abbot Francis Pfanner, founder of Mariannhill, had been suspended for one year and later removed from office completely, for having broken the rules of the order concerning silence, fasting, divine office – for the sake of mission! Abbot Pfanner war not allowed any contact with his foundation, and lived the last 15 years of his life in lonely isolation on a remote mission station. At that place, Emaus Mission in East Griqualand, he died in May 1909, a hundred years ago. This was the man whom many believe to have been an instrument of divine providence, since Abbot Pfanner with his loyal Trappist monks and the sisters community that he had founded started the systematic evangelisation among the Zulus and in the rest of Southern Africa. His life reveals the mystery of the cross: defeat and victory. |
