Festival at Valyermo Priory Spreads Its Heavenly Charm

An extended family of deer lives in a box canyon just over from the monks’ cemetery at the St. Andrew’s Benedictine priory in Valyermo. A large, regal buck conducts his tribe down to the monks’ orchards at sundown. There the deer get a drink of clear, clean water and munch a few apples.

Father Werner de Morchoven gave my friend Jean Erck and me a tour of the priory recently. There are Golden Delicious and Red Delicious apples. Last Tuesday, the monks picked the King David apples in the orchard at the entrance to the priory grounds. They will be sold to a company dealing in pesticide-free produce.

The priory was humming when Jean and I were there. The 21 monks who live there and volunteers are getting ready for the St. Andrew’s fall festival Saturday and next Sunday. The event celebrates the coming of the autumn harvest on the last weekend in September each year.

This is the 34th time the monks have prepared the festival. The first year, celebrants included just a few local families from the high desert around the tiny town of Pear Blossom. Now hundreds of people come to breathe the crystal air, play the games, eat the food and snap up the bargains. Two hundred and fifty volunteers help the monks make the festival a success.

Banners embroidered and appliqued with flowers and mottoes flying from the tree branches give the grounds the look of a medieval village on tournament day. The artist who creates these is Sue Poteat, a master quilter.

One of the popular displays among the 85 festival booths is the one showing Father Maur van Doorslaer’s ceramic plaques. These are pure charm--round-eyed angels and saints from the Old and New Testaments. Just when his admirers worldwide think there is not one more idea for Father Maur to turn into a plaque, he does. This year, he has made one of Jesus in a four-wheel-drive vehicle filled with young people.

He has created four new large angels, each one representing a season. Winter wears a robe patterned in snowflakes, a yellow ski cap, mittens and boots and carries a load of wood for a cozy fire. Summer bears a sheath of golden grain, spring an armload of flowers and autumn the fruits of the harvest. Another new one is of an angel carrying one end of a luxuriant flower garland with a fellow angel holding the other end.

Every time I see the plaques, I see ones I have always loved and marvel at the new ones. Father Maur draws and designs with the exuberance of a 4-year-old in a roomful of finger paints. His designs are witty, funny, touching. New also this year is a small angel standing on a scale and balefully rolling her eyes at the number it shows.

Father Maur is a serious painter at the Benedictine Mother House in Brugge, Belgium, from October until June and then, “I come over here and play with dolls.”

Last time I saw him some days ago, he was designing and building efour-foot plywood replicas of his four-seasons angels to hang on the four corners of the booth displaying his wares. Tim Benedict is production manager of the glazing and firing of the plaques. He is the twin brother of Father Francis Benedict.

The plaques are sold throughout the United States in specialty gift shops. Father Werner, festival chairman for the 34th time, goes to gift shows to explain the line of plaques to the salesmen and, I suspect, goes so they can see what a real monk looks like.

The monks of this priory were missionaries in China. When they were expelled by the Communists in 1952, they resettled in Valyermo on this 750-acre piece of ground right on the San Andreas fault. With a prayerful wink to St. Andrew, they called their priory after him, betting he would intercede for them if an earthquake ever shakes their retreat.

This year, the festival profits will go toward building a new youth center. The monks have city and suburban kids from all over Southern California year round for high desert weekends in their place of space and quiet.

The festival will have 85 booths serving every kind of food. There will be a roast beef dinner, hamburgers, tacos, hot dogs, the Cafe Continental, ice cream, beer, wine, cookies, cotton candy. If you can’t find it, ask.

There will be an art show on a hillside and items representing 22 crafts will be sold by local artisans.

The Chinese tea garden will serve Oriental delicacies by the lake. A petting zoo will be presented by the 4-H children from Juniper Hills who show their perfectly manicured, polished, bathed and brushed charges to those who may never have seen a real farm animal.

Mary Carvin is putting in her 34th year on the festival too. She runs the treasure-stuffed flea market and the bargain boutique. There will be bingo and face painting, and music of all kinds will fill the air. There is even a place for peace and quiet in the secluded center behind the ranch house.

John West, leader and choreographer of the Valyermo dancers, will present his troupe in vesper celebrations Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 3:30.

I saw my friend, the remarkable Father Eleutherius Winance, when Jean and I were there. He talked to us in his garden, a green oasis of grass and flowers with a forest of Lombardi poplars. He even has a 90-foot Sequoia that a U.S. Forest Ranger gave him 18 years ago.

Father Eleutherius, 81, is one of those who made his way out of China under guard almost 40 years ago. He teaches philosophy in the Claremont Graduate School once a week.

In 1963, he was asked to teach Medieval philosophy at Claremont McKenna, and he now teaches a class and conducts a seminar there. He has taught in China, India, Rome, Minnesota, Zaire and a number of other places.

To get to St. Andrew’s festival, which takes a little more than an hour from most of Los Angeles and less from the San Fernando Valley, take I-5 north to the Antelope Valley Freeway, then Highway 14 past Little Rock and Pear Blossom, then watch for Valyermo signs and proceed to the cool 3,600-foot-high island of laughter and music.