Angelic Choirs at the Deathbed
An Eyewitness Account of the Final Hours of Former Abbot Gregor Henckel-Donnersmarck
It may seem a whimsical notion, but I cannot help but it: the Pope and the Former Abbot of Heiligenkreuz arriving at the gates of heaven simultaneously, only to pause and graciously allow a few ragged homeless souls to pass through before them, forgoing the VIP entrance.
Former Abbot Gregor, who preceded the Holy Father by mere hours on his final journey, hailed from the ancient and affluent Silesian lineage of the Counts Henckel von Donnersmarck, and thus possessed a refined sense of protocol. He would have fully understood St. Peter’s approach, yet he would also have been delighted to know that his friend (and distant cousin), Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, is set to celebrate his Pontifical Requiem at Heiligenkreuz Monastery on April 30—provided the events in Rome permit.
Every death is a catastrophe, for with the passing of a person, especially one like Former Abbot Gregor, who lived and worked so long (he reached the age of 82), an entire universe is lost. Moreover, the Former Abbot was not only revered but deeply loved, not least by his large family and extended kin, of which I am a part. During a two-week visit to my uncle, the Former Abbot, in his final days, I had the privilege of witnessing how the Cistercians of Heiligenkreuz cared for their confrere, accompanying him with song and prayer in his last days and hours. What I experienced set my heart ablaze, compelling me to bear witness here. The boundless love I saw in the monks’ care for my uncle at his deathbed will remain with me forever, forever binding me to Heiligenkreuz, this nearly 900-year-old Cistercian monastery in the Vienna Woods, this profoundly sacred place.
The manner in which the Former Abbot was tended to was like a living enactment of the Song of Songs. He was cared for like a king. His confreres were constantly at his side—for months—above all Father Martin and a young candidate named Tobias, born in 2003. In his final days, they held his hand without cease and cooled his brow with a damp cloth. In the background, on a tablet, and at times audible across the courtyard, the dignified and solemn liturgy of the monks resounded. When, on Easter Sunday evening around 8:30 p.m., the death knell was rung, within minutes some 40 monks gathered in his room in the infirmary. Led by Abbot Maximilian, who wore a violet stole, they prayed the traditional Benedictine prayers for the dying.
It was an indescribable privilege to witness: The Abbot steps to the bedside of his predecessor and says, “Peace be to this house,” to which the monks respond, “And to all who dwell therein.” The Abbot continues: “Sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Then the beautiful voices of the monks intone the Asperges. It was as though a choir of angels sang. All knelt. The Litany for the Dying followed, after which the Abbot prayed the Proficiscere, anima christiana (“Go forth, Christian soul”), succeeded by further grand prayers in Latin. By the time the monks, masters of Gregorian chant, began the Subvenite, Sancti Dei, and at the very latest when they softly sang In paradisum deducant te Angeli, I knew: If life is a liturgy, my uncle had done everything right. To die in such a manner, on Easter no less, is a grace befitting the motto he chose for his abbatial coat of arms: Surrexit Dominus vere!
It was not yet late in the evening, and so the Abbot commanded that all the bells be rung: “From the smallest to the greatest!” The windows stood wide open, a gentle breeze wafted in, the hum of the monks’ voices mingled with the pealing bells—it was, for lack of a better word, heavenly!
Anna Maria Countess Henckel-Donnersmarck, the widow of his beloved brother Leo-Ferdinand (+2009), arrived from Berlin just in time before his final hour. I could assure her that, given his condition—he suffered from cancer—her brother-in-law had been remarkably well until mid-Holy Week. “I sleep well, I have an appetite, and I have no pain,” he had told me. His only regret: that he spoke no Slovak. He wished he could converse with his historically inclined caregiver, he said. Did he have a wish? Yes, a book with facts and sights about Slovakia, ideally with an appendix of simple Slovak phrases. Thanks to Amazon, the book arrived two days later.
On Tuesday of Holy Week, he insisted we visit the monastery’s beer garden together. The aforementioned caregiver deftly maneuvered his wheelchair over the cumbersome cobblestones. In keeping with Holy Week, our menu was modest (a cheese roll for him, a coffee for me), but it was a feast nonetheless. We spoke at length about the parable of the Prodigal Son and the workers who come late to the vineyard yet receive the same wage as those who labored from morning.
I teased him, noting that, as a former manager at the logistics firm Schenker before his late vocation, he should have a sense of fair wages, and that neither parable seemed to speak of justice. Grace, he explained, is not just: “It does not count, it does not weigh, it does not calculate, it is not just—it is, in its unfathomable generosity, far more than just.”
Bonum est diffusivum sui, as Saint Thomas Aquinas said—the good has a tendency to pour itself out, even to the point of prodigality. In his sermons, the Abbot often noted that the repentant son had prepared a litany of apologies and a plea to be given the lowliest job among the day laborers, but—and this was key—the father ran to meet him. “The son never got to recite his carefully prepared words of repentance. The father’s rushing to meet him—that is the sensation!”
We then spoke of how he managed to lure Pope Benedict XVI to Heiligenkreuz in 2007, and of his time in the 1980s at Rein Abbey, where he served as a crisis manager. Suddenly, he spotted Ingeborg Gabriel passing by the chestnut tree. Ever gregarious, he invited the renowned Viennese social ethicist to join us. We discussed and debated, joked and chuckled, until it grew chilly. We spoke of Max Weber’s view on greed (in short: not unique to capitalism, it’s always existed), the race for progress and technology in our time, which, as the professor noted, was arguably sparked by the Benedictines in the 12th century.
We touched on the delicate topic of young Muslims converting (allegedly a significant phenomenon in Vienna), the question of whether burials in so-called “peace forests,” now possible at Heiligenkreuz, were pagan—the professor thought so—or whether one shouldn’t be too strict. And we spoke of epitaphs. I mentioned one I find particularly polite: “Forgive me for not getting up.” That made my wheelchair-bound uncle laugh. He laughed often. He was a radiant man, one who did not need to feign Easter joy. And he was someone who refused to let cancer rob him of his zest for life.
A bit like the bird in the poem by Wilhelm Busch, which his sister-in-law Anna Maria recited, to the astonishment of some guests, at the Former Abbot’s 80th birthday celebration in Heiligenkreuz. It perfectly captures his mood that day in the beer garden:
Es sitzt ein Vogel auf dem Leim
Er flattert sehr und kann nicht heim.
Ein schwarzer Kater schleicht hinzu,
Die Krallen scharf, die Augen gluh.
Am Baum hinauf und immer höher
Kommt er dem armen Vogel näher.
Der Vogel denkt: weil das so ist
Und weil mich doch der Kater frisst,
Will ich nur keine Zeit verlieren
Und noch ein wenig quinquilieren
Und fröhlich pfeifen – wie zuvor.
Der Vogel scheint mir, hat Humor.
[The poem describes a bird caught on a branch, unable to fly home, as a predatory cat approaches. Accepting its fate, the bird decides to spend its final moments chirping joyfully, displaying a sense of humor in the face of doom.]
The Former Abbot had an enormous sense of humor too. Until the very end.
And he was surrounded by immeasurable love. It doesn’t get better than that.
