Father Adrien was born in Acadieville, New Brunswick, on March 5th 1934.  He was only twelve and a half years old when his father, Antoine Bordage, and his mother Marguerite Gallant, placed him in the trappist oblate school, on 6^th September, 1946.  He is one of the few to have persevered into the monastic life, and is even the sole survivor of vocations that came through the oblate school.

On 9^th April 1950 he received the novice’s habit, and so began his monastic formation properly so-called.  He made solemn profession, the regular five years later, and was consecrated to God for life.  From 1956 to 1958, he was at Mistassini to complete his formation in theology with a view to the priesthood.  He was ordained priest 1^st July 1959.  From 1963 to 1965, right in the middle of the second Vatican Council, he was sent to Rome to obtain a licence in theology at the renowned Gregorian University.

When he came back, Dom Alphonse, who was then Abbot, appointed him prior, the Abbot’s right-hand man.  At the same time he was put in charge of the chicken operation.  When Dom Alphonse became sick, Father Adrien was elected to succeed him as Abbot.  He fulfilled this role for a year but was then himself struck down by illness.

Currently Father Adrien is porter several hours a day and looks after the garden and the orchard, as well as serving his brethren in various other ways.

Monday 2 – The week was one of arrivals and departures.  A crossroads!  First of all Father Graham came back from Rome safe and sound after an absence of three months.  He had been on a practical course to assist him in his work as novice master.

Tuesday 3 – The Abbot flew to Saint Benedict’s Abbey in Snowmass, Colorado, to take part as the representative of the Canadian Region in the meeting of Abbots and Abbesses of the United States.

Wednesday 4 – Brother Gilles took the plane to Montreal to go and see his mother who is approaching the end of her life.  He was fortunate that she could still recognize him and he was able to experience the last gland of a loving mother.  He came back on Friday, very happy to have been able to make this visit.

Monday 9 – Brother Henry Arsenault presents his vocation.  “The road of my monastic vocation leads to the wilderness of the monastery forest.  Dates and places are all very well, but God’s ways dominate all things and I choose to give you who read this note something for the good of your souls.  I begin with the canticle of Our Lady in the Magnificat: “My sould magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour; for he has looked upon my lowliness.” (Lk1:47-48).  Now open your hearts to God’s Word and read Psalm 51(50) – Have mercy on me, O God – etc.  Now read Matt. 9:9-13.  In reading these sacred passages – you have my story.  God has been very good to me.  May he bless you and love you now and forever.”

Br. Henry is a Franco-American from Waltham in Massachusetts.  He lives in solitude in his hermitage in the woods except that he comes back to the monastery every morning at 3.30 am for Vigils and stays till after Mass at about 9 am.

Monday 9 – This evening Fr. Graham spoke to us in chapter about his course in Rome.  Interesting!!

Tuesday 10 – Br. Gilles received news of the passing of his mother, a little sooner than anticipated.  The community expressed its sympathy be celebrating a Mass for the repose of her soul.

Wednesday 11 – There is a lot going on at the farm.  Reginald Gaudet and his team are repairing the floor of the second level of the big chicken barn.  Patrick Gallant, with his bulldozer, is preparing the site of the new heifer barn.

Friday 13 – Dom Bede came back from Colorado.  Straight off, this evening, he showed us some pictures.

Saturday 14 – The garden is all planted and sown.  We will see what comes out of it!

Sunday 15 – We are united in prayer with the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec.

Monday 16 – Now it is Fr. Maurice’s turn to be in the news.  Fr. Maurice recalls the surprise he had when, just after being appointed superior he found in the abbot’s filing cabinet a letter from a young lad of 13 signed: Maurice Guimond, future Trappist!  The superior of the time, Dom Alphonse Arsenault, had been to talk about the Trappist way of life to the students of Collège Saint-Louis, in Edmundston, where Maurice was a boarder.  Dom Alphonse had invited those who wished to write and find out more.  This was the beginning of a correspondence which resulted in his entry into the monastery, in September 1972.  He made solemn profession here in 1978 and was ordained in the following year.  Throughout his monastic life Fr. Maurice has had all sorts of jobs, many of them hidden services.  So he went from laundry to kitchen, to bakery, to infirmary, to guest-house, to carpenter’s shop, to the farm, and more.  Around 1985 he was asked to help out our brothers in the monaster of Mistassini in Quebec Province.  There he was novice master.  When Dom Alphonse became sick, Father Maurice was recalled to Acadie and made Prior, then first Superior.  This office he held for 10 years, becoming Abbot in 1995.  He resigned in 2002 due to increasing health difficulties.   He took some time out for a rest in Quebec and then took up the duties of accountant.  He has continued this up to the present, despite a couple of major hospitalizations.

Fr. Clovis Chiasson has gone to the Eucharistic Congress.  He will take a further two weeks off.  Fr. Adrien is replacing him for Mass at the Trappistine nuns’ this week.

Tuesday 17 – The seasonal work is going well.

Wednesday 18 – The school-leavers from École Sécondaire Assomption in Rogersville came to visit our two monasteries of monks and nuns.  The Abbot showed them round ours.  Fr. Joseph Salame, a Lebanese, Maronite, priest from Windsor, Ontario, arrived for a sabbatical retreat of some months duration. 

Sunday 22 – This evening, we began our annual retreat.  It will last until June 26^th. The retreat master is Abbot Gregory of Conception Abbey.  Conferences at 9am and 5pm.

Father Graham, our Benjamin, speaks about his journey:

“I was born in 1965 in Moncton, New Brunswick.  I grew up there, a friendly time and place.  We spent our summers and other times at Caissie Cape.  For this reason, this Cape, with Grand Digue so close, remains with me as the heart of Acadie, so to speak.  I studied for a while at Moncton University and then at the universities of Saint François-Xavier and Dalhousie in Nova Scotia.  I finished with a degree in English literature.  It was a Protestant Pastor that directed me to Our Lady of Calvary for my first retreat in 1994.  He thought a lot of the monks and thought I would be able to learn a thing or two from their simple life-style.  He was right.  I entered in 1995.  In 2003, I made solemn vows and, shortly afterwards, went overseas to study for the priesthood in Rome.  I was ordained here in Rogersville in 2006.  That’s my life!  Each time anyone asks me to talk about my journey to the monastery and in the monastery, I realize that I still have a long way to go towards realizing what a wonderful thing has happened to me.  Pray for me.  Thank you.  Goodbye.”

Monday 23 – Our annual retreat began yesterday, with the first conference in the evening, and went on until Thursday 26^th.  Abbot Gregory, of the Benedictine monastery of Conception Abbey in Missouri, was a very good preacher.

Wednesday 25 – Dom Gérard, Abbot of Melleray, in France, arrived.  He came to do what is called the Regular Visitation, a biennial assessment of the spiritual and material condition of the community.

Thursday 26 – We had a festive supper with talking in honour of our distinguished visitors, during which Abbot Gregory answered our questions about his monastery in Missouri.  A big establishment.

Friday 27 – The Abbot Visitor started seeing the community one by one.  He also spoke to us in chapter about his monastery of Melleray.

Sunday 29 – Father Graham went to celebrate the Mass for our sisters of Assomption.  The Abbot stayed home and presided at the solemn Mass for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.  For his homily he drew a lot on celebrations in Rome to mark the opening of the jubilee year for the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Saint Paul, which he had found on the Vatican’s website.