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So far A Monk has created 9 blog entries.

Refectory Reading: Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers

2024-04-11T13:59:18-05:00April 11th, 2024|Refectory Readings|

At the evening meal in the refectory, the monks are reading Carlo Acutis: A Saint in Sneakers by Courtney Mares, recently published in 2023.

From a young age, Carlo’s enthusiasm for Jesus was contagious. His witness brought his own family back to faith. Carlo called the Eucharist “my highway to heaven” and was eager to tell everyone about the incredible reality of Christ’s true presence in the world.

How does a city boy who only lived to the age of fifteen “go viral” more than a decade after he died? Discover the story of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church.

Born in 1991, the same year as the launch of the World Wide Web, Carlo has been hailed by the pope as an example of love and holiness […]

St Benedict Transitus 2024

2024-03-23T12:08:04-05:00March 21st, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

When Saint Peter declared to the Lord that he and the other Apostles had “left all things” and followed Him, he could not have realized the immense consequences of his words. He certainly did not consider at that precise moment how thousands upon thousands of human beings in future times would imitate his example by giving up all their earthly possessions, in order to be more perfect followers of Christ. How could he have known in his day that hermits, monks and nuns would someday fill the desert places of earth like so many John the Baptists? Surely, it did not cross Peter’s mind on that particular occasion, as he spoke with Jesus in the land beyond the Jordan, that he was actually tracing a […]

Refectory Reading: A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter Claver

2024-03-14T12:30:13-05:00March 13th, 2024|Refectory Readings|

At the evening meal in the refectory, the monks have just finished reading A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter Claver (1581–1684) by Arnold Lunn, originally published in 1935 and reprinted in 2021.
Reflecting on humanistic outrages from Roman times to recent years, A Saint in the Slave Trade offers philosophical and spiritual insights on how the power of Christian charity revolutionizes and liberates souls in the direst situations.

Captured and separated from all he loved, fettered down in a ship amid relentless waves and disease, Peter Claver lived at the mercy of his captors. Water and food were scarce, prisoners were tortured and tormented, and the heat and decrepitude were intolerable. Many succumbed to death, while others committed suicide or were killed.

This is the desperate situation into which St. Peter Claver (1581–1684) voluntarily […]

Refectory Reading: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

2024-02-12T15:45:17-06:00February 12th, 2024|Refectory Readings|

At the evening meal in the refectory, the monks have just finished reading The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: History in Three Dimensions by Joseph Pearce, published in 2023.
Inspired by Pope Benedict XVI’s vision of the history of the Church, Joseph Pearce traces three strands interwoven in Church History: The Good Saints, The Bad Persecutors, and The Beautiful Art.

Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life”, but fallen mankind, although made in Christ’s image, is not so pure. Human history—including Church history—is a tapestry woven of three threads: the good, the bad, and the beautiful. This book tells the story of Christendom over two millennia, focusing on what was good, bad, and beautiful in […]

Dom Guéranger on the Blessing of Candles at Candlemas

2024-01-30T12:22:08-06:00January 30th, 2024|Dom Guéranger's Liturgical Year|

The Blessing of Candles at Candlemas

by Dom Prosper Guéranger, founding Abbot of the Congregation of Solesmes, taken from his treatment of February 2: The Purification of the Blessed Virgin in Volume 3 of his Liturgical Year.

The mystery of to-day’s ceremony of the blessing of candles has frequently been explained by liturgists, dating from the 7th century. According to St. Ivo of Chartres, the wax which is formed from the juice of flowers by the bee, (which has always been considered as the emblem of virginity,) signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant, who diminished not, either by his conception or his birth, the spotless purity of his Blessed Mother. The same holy Bishop would have us […]

Refectory Reading: Blessed Charles of Austria

2024-01-26T14:03:24-06:00January 15th, 2024|Refectory Readings|

Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy tells the story of Karl or Charles Hapsburg, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors, who died in 1922 and was beatified in 2004.
Charles Coulombe expertly traces the idea of empire and Catholic monarchy throughout the centuries, as well as the lineage of both Charles and his wife, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, whose cause for beatification Clear Creek Abbey is promoting. Charles’s deep Catholic faith and devotion to his family come to the fore in the narrative, in addition to his skill and wisdom in statecraft and generalship.

From the foreword by Archduke Karl von Hapsburg, grandson of Blessed Karl:

Thinking about Blessed Emperor Karl, three principal roles of the man present themselves: the soldier, the politician, and the family man. The most […]

Dom Guéranger on the Epiphany

2024-01-05T16:20:13-06:00January 5th, 2024|Dom Guéranger's Liturgical Year|

Epiphany Meditation

by Dom Prosper Guéranger, founding Abbot of the Congregation of Solesmes, taken from the chapter entitled “The Epiphany of Our Lord” in Volume 3 of his Liturgical Year.

The Feast of the Epiphany is the continuation of the mystery of Christmas; but it appears on the Calendar of the Church with its own special character. Its very name, which signifies Manifestation, implies that it celebrates the apparition of God to his creatures. The Epiphany is indeed great Feast, and the joy caused us by the Birth of our Jesus must be renewed on it, for, as though it were a second Christmas Day, it shows us our Incarnate God in a new light. It leaves us all the sweetness of […]

Dom Guéranger on the Mystery of Advent

2023-12-01T17:51:30-06:00December 1st, 2023|Dom Guéranger's Liturgical Year|

The Mystery of Advent

by Dom Prosper Guéranger, founding Abbot of the Congregation of Solesmes, taken from the chapter entitled “The Mystery of Advent” in Volume 1 of his Liturgical Year.

Introduction

If we would penetrate into the profound mystery which occupies the mind of the Church during this season, we find that this mystery of Advent, or the Coming of Jesus is at once simple and threefold. It is simple, for it is the one same Son of God that is coming; it is threefold, because he comes at three different times and in three different ways.

“In the first Coming,” says St. Bernard, “he comes in the flesh and in weakness; in the second, he comes in spirit and in power; in the third, he […]

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