Founded in 1946, Nunraw Abbey (from "nun's row") was the first Cistercian monastery in Scotland since the Reformation. The monastery, located east of Edinburgh and officially named Sancta Maria Abbey, began with seven monks from Roscrea abbey in Ireland. Here the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, then an eccentric kind of Christian (he entered the Church in 1982), reflects on a visit.
The article, titled "The meaning of life in a monastery", appeared in the 2 June 1967 issue.
Nothing, I suppose, could be more alien to the spirit of this age than a contemplative order like the Cistercians with whom I recently spent three weeks at Nunraw. Even the aspiring good today tend to believe that virtue is only worth while if it finds expression in virtuous deeds. The notion that any useful purpose is served by monks whose chief activity is prayer and contemplation is, in most people's eyes, too nonsensical to merit serious discussion.
