A priest once said that an Adoration Chapel is the engine room of a parish. This metaphor always comes to mind when I watch the documentary film “Into great silence” about Cistercian monks in Chartreuse, France. The film, more a meditation than an informative expose of life behind the monastery walls high atop the French Alps, provides a glimpse into the engine room.  There isn’t a great deal of “doing” to be seen -  not if you’re looking for a command centre, bustling activity, huddles of people deep in strategic schemes – things you’d expect of an initiative whose purpose is to fuel the existence of a massive secular initiative. These Cistercians spend their day in study, individual and communal prayer, tending their gardens, chopping their wood, performing the duties of their assigned work, be it sewing new habits or repairing shoes. Very ordinary, isn’t it?  And yet their dedication to that very ordinariness is a source of grace we all benefit from, through God’s providential design.