A monk gives an introduction to the Angelus, a devotion recited thrice daily by the monks of Clear Creek, in honor of the Incarnation, celebrated at Christmas and at the feast of the Annunciation, the patronal mystery of Clear Creek Abbey. View our Advent and Christmas items View our Gregorian Chant Albums
Items about Clear Creek Abbey
In a house full of adult men of varying temperaments and origins, one can imagine that certain rules would be necessary to maintain peace and good order.
Saint Benedict, in fact, puts emphasis on this practical aspect when regulating the silence which the monks must keep at night: it is intended to allow all to sleep without being kept up by the importunity of those who would want to talk. This silence of the night, then, takes on a grave character colored by fraternal charity. This silence of the night or great silence is normally the one that captures the popular mind, with images of monks in dark corridors using sign language to communicate about secret things.
Nonetheless, this was not the universal practice of ancient monasticism. We read in the […]
Today is the 1,000th anniversary of the passing of Saint Henry, whom Pope St. Pius X declared to be the patron of Benedictine Oblates. This Emperor took to heart not just politics and temporal legislation but also religion and the welfare of the Church, as can be seen in his founding monasteries throughout the Empire. Tradition tells us that, trained by the Benedictine bishop of Regensburg, he became an oblate of the Abbey of Cluny and then asked to be received into the Benedictine abbey of St. Vanne at Verdun. The abbot welcomed him, but immediately constrained him by obedience to re-ascend the imperial throne.
Saint Henry was first a King of Germany and then the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He had a prudent, precise, and […]
Dear Brothers and Sister in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,
When today, at the end of this Holy Mass, we make the traditional procession in honor of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Angels will look upon the scene (as the Saints tell us) with awe and wonder. “How can it be,” they might say among themselves, “that these poor mortals, these lowly human creatures, are allowed to carry the very Lord of Heaven and Earth, trapped, as it were, inside a small circle of gold behind glass, along a path of colored wood chips, to the tune (joyful, though slightly off key, perhaps) of their humble canticles?”
In a time before time really started on our earth, it is said that some of the Angels rebelled against God, precisely because it […]
A monk gives a general introduction to a piece of Gregorian chant that is sung throughout the Easter season.
View our Chant items
Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum…I arose, and am still with thee, Alleluia (Introit).
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,
This day marks the moment when all things begin to rise. Not only does the Messiah, Our Lord, rise from the dead, but with Him and in Him the entire human race and the entire cosmos surge ineffably upwards, if such a thing can be said on such a scale. Nothing will ever be the same; the world will never again look like it did before Christ’s Resurrection, the great Paschal event at the center of History. We understand now that it was all the secret of the Father, His design from beginning, from the sad moment when Adam and Eve tumbled into sin, like Jack and Jill down […]
Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end (Jn 13:1)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,
We find ourselves again this evening on the threshold of the sacred Triduum, the holiest days of Holy Week, at this solemn Mass of Maundy Thursday. We are here to commemorate the beginning of Our Lord’s Passion. But is this not something we have done before, many times? Is Maundy Thursday just an exercise we repeat year after year? Or is it not, rather, a unique mystery into which we enter—at least this is to be hoped—more intensely every time? […]
If only the lover sings, listen to the song, and you may catch a secret about the beloved. The song of the Church, our mother, is marvelously expressed in Gregorian chant, and its quality rises to a unique pitch during these last two weeks of Lent, wherein the Church’s heart and mind are entirely preoccupied with Christ’s suffering. Where better listen to her song than with monks, whose sole treasured heirloom is the liturgy?
Those unable to visit a monastery have now an opportunity to listen to a part of our family heritage with the recent album of these Passiontide chants by our motherhouse, the Abbey of Fontgombault. Including the propers for the Masses of Passiontide and Holy Thursday as well as the Improperia of Good Friday and several responsories for Tenebrae, this recording […]
Father Abbot will give a conference at the symposium Blessed Charles von Habsburg, the husband of the Servant of God Empress Zita, whose cause this Abbey promotes. He will be speaking on Blessed Charles and his wife, and will elaborate the Benedictine-Habsburg connection. The symposium will be held in Dallas on Saturday, April 13th, and feature conferences and interviews by others, like Archduke Eduard, Archduke Paul, Princess Maria-Anna von Habsburg Galitzine, Suzanne Pearson and Charles Coulombe, the last of whom wrote the biography on Blessed Charles featured at the monastic table and is writing another biography on Empress Zita. Discover more and reserve a ticket by clicking here Learn more about Blessed Charles here… Learn more about Servant of God Empress Zita in Father Abbot’s letter here…
Clear Creek Abbey will host three classes in Gregorian chant:
Laus In Ecclesia, level 1, taking the complete beginner or amateur in Gregorian chant to the level of being able to sing the chant with a certain competence
Laus in Ecclesia, level 2, building on the first degree, sharpening skills in reading notation, and rhythm, with an emphasis on the singing of the Divine Office in Gregorian chant.
Laus in Ecclesia, level 3, bringing all the previous levels to completion: this level is aimed primarily at directors of scholas, with a concentration on interpretation of bigger pieces and chironomy (direction).
The classes will be held from July 15th until the 19th, 2024. Find out more about it and register at clearcreekmonks.org/learnChant .
Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey is a Benedictine community belonging to the Solesmes Congregation and, like other monasteries of the Solesmes Congregation, is to be counted among the institutes entirely ordered towards contemplation. It was founded in 1999 from the Abbey of Our Lady of Fontgombault in France and is located in the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Clear Creek became an abbey in 2010 and counts 55 monks, who devote themselves to God alone in the hidden life, in silence and solitude, in constant prayer and willing penance.
After twenty years of existence, we are happy, by the grace of God, to have completed two large buildings and a sizable portion of our abbatial church. We completed the “Chapter House” in 2023 to accommodate the growing number of monks and provide a Sacristy, Infirmary, classrooms and the Chapter itself. Please help us continue this arduous, but important work for the glory of God.
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