One day He will say:
‘I came as a guest and you
received Me’.
Silence
We invite you to the guesthouse to meet one another at the rhythm of our community, and so to live the monastic spirit of silence and prayer that animates us as brothers on our monastic way.
Every guest helps the guesthouse to be a quiet house. All meals are taken in silence (with music in the background).
Daily rhythm
In our abbey the day has a clear monastic structure. Experience teaches that sharing in this order of the day is a fitting help towards inner rest. Taking part in the services of prayer is essential for us and belongs to the heart of our hospitality. We invite you to a steady rhythm in sharing the Liturgy of the Hours.
Our guesthouse
is much more than
just a place
to stay.
Simplicity
The guesthouse has some twenty simple rooms, among them a few double rooms and one room fitted out for people with limited mobility.
The meals are simple, sober and preferably vegetarian (fish is served). Dietary requests can be accommodated only to a limited extent.
Costs
Guesthouse rates:
For the cost of a stay we apply a principle of solidarity: guests with a high income pay more, someone with a low income less. We propose an A, B and C rate.
These are as follows:
Rate A
In principle 70 euro per 24 hours is asked of guests with an average income;
Rate B
For students and for guests with a low income we ask 50 euro per 24 hours. If even that amount is too high a threshold for a guest’s stay, it can be discussed with the guestmaster.
Rate C
Guests with a relatively high income may take on additional accommodation costs, and so help give shape to the principle of solidarity. We leave this consideration to the guest; there can be no question of any obligation on our part.
Cancelling
In cases of force majeure or illness it may be that your stay cannot go ahead: please let us know as long in advance as possible. It gives another guest the chance to stay here after all.
Arrival
The arrival times are
10.30 – 11.30 except on Monday
14.00 – 16.30
If these arrival times are not possible, please mention this when booking.
Miscellaneous
Guests provide their own towels and personal toiletries.
A visit to the enclosure is not possible.
Access by public transport from Poperinge station:
Flex de Lijn – tel. 015 – 408888 and www.delijn.be
Bank account number
Abdij Sint Sixtus vzw BE 47 4673 3527 0180
Payment
Payment is preferably made by bank card during the stay.
If as an individual guest you wish to have a double room, an extra 10 euro per night is asked, for costs of heating, cleaning and ecology.
For making up your bed you are asked to use the abbey’s set of linen. This set is included in the cost of the stay. The use of your own sheets is not permitted.
Length of a stay
Because the demand for stays is great, we seek a good spread of stays in the guesthouse.
Therefore:
The maximum length of a stay is one week: from Monday afternoon to Sunday morning;
The minimum length of a stay is in principle two times 24 hours.
A substantial length fits, to our sense, the intention and the rhythm of our guesthouse.
Contact
Booking a stay
For a first request you are asked to make contact by telephone.
In other cases the request is preferably made by e-mail.
Please state your name, address, telephone number and the times of arrival and departure.
The guestmaster can be reached
Tuesday to Saturday between 10.30 and 11.30.
except on the first Saturday of the month.
+32 (0) 57 40 19 70
The confidential counsellor
The Abbey of Westvleteren offers a safe environment and has an external confidential counsellor available for reports of unwanted behaviour such as bullying, aggression and intimidation, or matters of integrity.
See the guest brochure “Kompas voor de gast”.
Guesthouse
Saint Sixtus Abbey
Donkerstraat 12
B – 8640 Westvleteren
Belgium
Testimonials
Eadem sed alter
Eadem sed alter
Fundamental patterns repeat themselves
Twice a year – that is about the rhythm of the ritual stay
Of the (permitted) lodging
It begins – again and again – with a passage
A narrow bricked corridor, without a roof
110 feet long
Towards a church that is no longer a church
Halfway along the brick impasse
Turned to the east: a pilgrims’ chapel
A house halfway, without adornment
A reliquary writ large
Inside the Madonna waits
Mother of all cultures
Aguirre y Otegui!
Uncannily precise
Much the same occurs in (and around) the church
That damnably beautiful church
Diaphanously grounded
Between hospitium and claustrum
The Liturgy of the Hours underpins the days – every day
An intoxicating rhythm
Compline – with the quenching of the lights – touches deepest
Again: the Madonna
And the brothers.
Again and again the brothers
An elegantly close-knit community
Like the air-dance of starlings
The alibi of a temporary stay is seldom unambiguous
But always there is the writing
Seated at a wooden table
In the midst of a double garden of silence
Those gardens grow slowly, generously
A young Prunus dulcis has just been planted
Give it 1,000 days
And there will be sweet fruit
A contrary silence
Over the years the abbey of Westvleteren has gained a settled place in my heart and my life. In times of retreat I let go here of all the ‘musts’ and may enter a free space of silence.
The warm hospitality, the good care, and also the familiarity and stability of the place give me an experience of coming home and a firm bedding. I admire this ‘stabilitas’ of the community: I come and go, while the community and its prayer carry on all that time. It is wonderful then simply to be able to ‘be’, to let God happen to you, whether you are aware of it or not.
The community draws you along into prayer, into a space of sober beauty, beyond thoughts and feelings, making use in this of the sometimes unruly psalms.
Praying the Liturgy of the Hours was for me a long schooling. It took time and patience to be able to experience how a shared ritual can set you free by lifting you out of your own small world. In time I came to feel how a shared movement can take you up and help you let go.
Silence too remains a contrary invitation. What seems aloof and disconnected can lead to surprising connections. But it takes something to come to a truly deep rest: a certain discipline to give silence room and to remain in it long enough. Patience and trust, to live through all the inner movements that rise up more sharply and intensely in that silence and to bring them to God. Then the wonder can happen that you no longer wish to flee
silence, but can dwell in it comfortably and begin to taste something of the glowing life that flows in our innermost being.