It’s not just a garden. It’s a place to reclaim a bit of other perfect places.

Not the absolutely perfect place.

Not Eden where Christians believe first man and first woman lived.

Not Gethsemane, where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before the crucifixion.

But a garden enclosed. Cloistered and, the monks who tend it say, dedicated to God’s glory.

Father Jon answers the door buzzer, smiles and extends his hand to the visitor.

Brother David waits atop the stairs.

They are monks at the Carmelites of St. Joseph’s Annunciation Hermitage at Queen of Angels Catholic Church, Austin.

A third monk, Brother Henry, is away on this mid-summer’s day.

The Annunciation Hermitage monks do not welcome attention by the media, but today they have made an exception to talk gardening.

Unlike Mary of nursery rhyme fame, neither Father Jon nor Brother David are contrary to telling how their garden grows.

First, though, they have history to share.

“A hermitage is a small monastery,” begins Father Jon, “It is a residence, a place where monks or hermits could live together in varying degrees of silence and solitude. Historically, hermitages were small communities. It certainly could be for one; an individual could have their own hermitage, but there’s always been a tradition of smaller groups coming together. It’s easier to support yourself with a smaller group of two, three or four than trying to do it all yourself.”

“Some people are called to total solitude and they have their own separate hermitage,” he adds.

“We follow a very ancient rule about 800 years old,” interjects Brother David.

Father Jon is an ordained Roman Catholic priest who has responsibilities of sacramental ministry, celebrating mass and hearing confession.

Brother David’s responsibilities are more manual labor and prayer.

Father Jon and Brother Henry came to the hermitage in June 2001 and Brother David later.

According to Father Jon, the Roman Catholic Church asks those who pursue a monastic life to separate themselves from the world’s noise, traffic and chaos.

“It more to guard and protect our silence and solitude,” Father Jon said. “There are parts of the building reserved for us. That’s called the enclosure.

“We’ve extended it to the yard surrounding the hermitage itself,” he said.

“It’s just a way for us to say we’re trying to claim this little piece of garden and yard as something that is holy for the Lord,” Father Jon said. “It complements our life and vocation, but it also gives witness.”

“Gardens are pretty important in scripture and lots of things happen in gardens,” Brother David said.

Brother David explained that further.

According to the monk, “It has been said that our salvation history all takes place between two gardens: Eden and that of Our Lord’s resurrection.

“Roughly in the middle we find the garden called ‘Carmel,’ much referred to in the Old Testament as a ‘garden’ or ‘garden land,’” Brother David explained. “It has also been translated to “beautiful hill, choice orchard, highly cultivated ground.”

According to his research, Carmel in the Holy Land was covered with abundant and rich vegetable earth.

Prophets refer to Carmel as a place of “proverbial beauty favored with God’s blessings.”

A place, a garden like the one at the Annunciation Hermitage.

The Garden Enclosure Project at the hermitage is “fully in keeping with the contemplative nature of our religious community,” Brother David said.

Monasteries and hermitages are encouraged by the Roman Catholic church law to “keep an enclosed or cloistered space which is dedicated to God’s glory in prayer, silence and garden labor.”

Reclaiming Eden was always one of the purposes of the Carmelite life, Brother David said.

“This means that the original harmony of right relationships found in the Garden of Eden is rediscovered in a life which gives glory to God and reverently cultivates the land.”

Gardening and spiritual growth are related, the monk explained, and both “teach us a healthly relationship with all things.”

It’s quite common in the Roman Catholic church for them to have houses of monks, nuns and Carmelites who keep gardens where flowers for the altar are cut, vegetables and herbs for the table are raised and trees supply their varied fruit for canning.

Enclosing the garden completes the symbolism of cultivating “God’s inner presence in a sacred place.”

“We are glad to share this place with our retreatants and other guests who are seeking God’s presence,” Brother David said.

“Many people help us. We couldn’t do it all ourselves,” said Father Jon.

Outside the hermitage in a fenced-in area is a sight to behold.

Brightly colored perennials are in full bloom, grasses and ferns wave in an a morning breeze and vegetables are on the vine.

Richard Cook, the retired school administrator, leads a group of volunteers who assist the two monks.

“Every monastery has an enclosed garden that is always part of a monastic life,” said Father Jon. “It was intended from the very beginning when we came here that something would be done.”

Donations of money, time and labor created the wrought iron fencing and stonework that carefully match the Queen of Angels Catholic Church stonework and enclose the space.

A statue of St. Joseph The Worker is the result of other donations from parishioners.

Vegetables grown in the garden are consumed by the monks and their guests at retreats. Sometimes they are exchanged for goods. For instance:, tomato sauce for tomatoes, according to Brother David.

“It’s great to sit down around the food you have grown,” Brother David added. “Plus there’s the sense of giving thanks to God.”

“The beautiful fresh flowers we are able to bring to the chapel are special, too,” said Father Jon. There is Miracle Grow and the miracle supplied naturally.

Gardening involves work.

“It is work, but it’s holy work and very peaceful,” Father Jon said of monastic life. “Labor is a very important part of our daily life. Some of that can be rather tedious and it’s not necessarily renewing, so it’s a real privilege to work outside with living things to see them grow and change.”

Brother David nodded in affirmation.

“And, to wait,” the priest added, “The whole thought of hope all the winter long until spring finally arrives and in the fall when things die, there’s the feeling of putting everything to rest.”

Every gardener everywhere, cloistered or not, shares that feeling.

The Annunciation Hermitage monks preserve what they grow for future use and, no, “They didn’t teach us canning in seminary,” chuckled Father Jon.

Stepping outside into the garden — open to guests only and not the public —- shows the bountiful fruits of the monks’ labors.

Volunteers come twice a week to assist the monks in watering and weeding the garden.

A new mosaic with every single glass tile laid by an artist’s hands decorates the enclosed garden this summer.

A statue of St. Joseph the Worker is especially striking to a first-time visitor as much as the grotto in a far corner of the area.

Don Rush’s stonework is everywhere to be admired.

The cloistered garden has signage acknowledging the monks’ appreciation for all assistance from friends and benefactors.

There’s a lot to admire.

This year’s spring and summer growing season has been kind to the monks’ gardening efforts, but growing the biggest and most is not what this garden is about.

“We pray that God will bless us, but whatever the Lord gives, even if it is scarce, sometimes, too, can be a blessing,” Father Jon said. “We just take it as it comes.”

Parishioners at weekend Masses or mourners at funerals or celebrants at weddings catch fleeting glimpses of the garden looking over the tall fence that surrounds it and comment on how beautiful the garden is.

“They really appreciate it and they appreciate the care that has gone into it,” Father Jon said before giving a benediction of sorts.

“Great things happen in gardens. Eden or Gethsemane or the Enclosure Garden at Annunciation Hermitage,” said Father Jon. “We think of it as a gift and we appreciate being here.”

Loved ones are memorialized in the enclosed garden.

All one has to do is send the name of someone who made a difference in their lie with an offering and they will be remembered in prayer.

For more information, call 437-4015 or write Annunciation Hermitage, 1009 Oakland Ave. East, Austin, MN 55912.