Recuerdos del Císter - Parte 1 - Poblet

Poblet
Allá hacia el año 2001 planeaba mi primer recorrido alrededor de España. Habíamos resuelto llevar a mis papás a recorrer España. De Barcelona a Madrid visitando también Andalucía. Con mucho tiempo de anticipación empecé a preparar minuciosamente el recorrido, como a mí me gusta, con calma, sin prisas, con detalle y precisión.

En busca de qué hacer entre Barcelona y Madrid encontré por azar más que por otra cosa el Monasterio de Santa María de Poblet muy cerca los viñedos de la casa Torres en la región del Priorat. Siendo excusa lo uno para lo otro, me empeñé en visitarlo.

¡Quién iba a pensar que a partir de ahí iniciaría una de mis mayores pasiones!

Poblet es una abadía cisterciense enclavada en un valle fértil de Conca de Barberà, más precisamente junto a Vimbodí en Cataluña.

Fue fundada por el conde Ramon Berenguer IV de Barcelona, quien lo dona a los monjes de la orden de san Bernardo en 1149. El monasterio conoció su apogeo en siglo XIV y su abandono total en 1835. Hacia 1838 comenzó la restauración del lugar que terminará hasta 1940. El monasterio es panteón de los reyes de Aragón y la UNESCO lo integra a la lista de patrimonio mundial de la humanidad en 1991.

Pero más importante que todo, es la abadía de referencia entre las abadías cisterciences españolas.

Kennedy

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he said. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."


"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life," his voice trembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. "He should be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

This eulogy invoked the words of William Butler Yeats, the poet: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair. But like his father, he had every gift but the gift of years."

"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly?" Kennedy said from the podium that night. "There are those who do, and their own words testify to their intolerance."

"As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship," he said there last summer. "So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory and defeat.

"But we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world," he said. "And I pledge to you, I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test."

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he said. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

Ulysses
Alfred Lord Tennyson

If you are in the arena you are there to do something

“Always challenge the assumptions and implied premises of all arguments, for it is from there that the most pernicious of philosophies originate,”

Follow your passions, ignore the herds, stay true to yourself, and you will chart a meaningful life.”

Quote: en silencio como todo lo grande

En silencio como todo lo grande; con premeditación, como todo lo que se emprende con astucia, se consuma el milagro de los milagros Y ahora se confirma la vieja experiencia de que lo decisivo casi siempre se alcanza en secreto A los hombres solo les cansa una cosa. La vacilación y la incertidumbre. Toda acción libera, incluso la peor es preferible a no hacer nada. Stefan Zweig: Momentos estelares de la humanidad