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So far A Monk has created 51 blog entries.

Coming Of Age

2024-09-28T12:30:59-05:00September 13th, 2024|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

It was a quarter of a century ago, on the morning of September 15th well before dawn, when the founders of our monastery packed up the last of their effects and prepared to make the long journey from France to America. During the chant of the Benedictus canticle, toward the end of the office of Lauds, they assembled in the middle of the ancient abbatial church of Fontgombault and then moved out, led by the abbot, Eagles' Bluff with abbot of Solesmesthrough the open portal and into the vehicle that would take them to a train for Paris. In Paris, a place once peopled by saints and famous monasteries, they boarded a plane bound for […]

Assumption 2024

2024-08-31T15:26:26-05:00August 15th, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the mortal wounding of the head of the prince of our enemies (Judith).

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

On this glorious feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, many splendid and glorious things are presented to the eyes of our soul: a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet; the visit made by Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, when she intoned her Magnificat; the spectacle of angels rejoicing as they receive their Queen into the blessed precincts of Heaven; finally, the bride described in Psalm 44, adorned with gilded clothing surrounded with variety. And all of these sacred images have a spiritual meaning, not only for the Church in general, but […]

Of Angels and Fish

2024-09-30T16:50:05-05:00July 13th, 2024|Letters to the Friends, News|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

Saint Benedict by Fra Angelico

Saint Benedict by Fra Angelico

The thing was known. The son of Pietro di Bernardone, previously a turbulent youth, had experienced a real conversion. Observing this religious saga as it unfolded, some Benedictine monks who owned property in the area decided to let Francis and his band of followers use the Porziuncula, a small but beautiful chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, together with the land adjoining it, as a home for their new order. Since these new Brothers wanted to own nothing, it was understood that they would provide the Benedictines with a basket of fish each year as a kind of rent. This all happened some 800 years […]

St. Benedict 2024

2024-07-13T12:19:08-05:00July 11th, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? (Mt. 19: 27)

Dear Brothers and Sisters
My Very Dear Sons,

The consequences of Saint Benedict’s flight to the wilderness in order to serve God alone are incalculable. How paradoxical this is: he abandons family and friends, his fellow human beings, but in so doing renders them a greater service than ever he could have by remaining in the usual walks of life! The theme is well known to monks, who also remember that much of our Western civilization hinged on that decision of the young man from Nursia. Not only did monastic life powerfully prosper in his wake, but even the outcroppings of the monastic project served to sustain the institutions […]

The One Adventurer

2024-06-14T12:01:14-05:00June 13th, 2024|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

Here is a spiritual arrow, well drawn and well aimed, offered in the fight for Catholic Christian sanity, on the occasion of Father’s Day 2024.

        — br. Philip Anderson, abbot

With Father’s Day upon the horizon, a few lines from the French poet, Charles Peguy,Cf. John Saward’s remarkable book The Way of the Lamb: The Spirit of Childhood and the End of the Age, in which the author gives his opinion on page 96 that Peguy, while not a saint, was a prophet in the strict sense of the term. seem appropriate:

There is only one adventurer in the world, as can be seen very clearly in the modern world, the father of a family. Even the […]

Pentecost 2024

2024-05-25T12:25:56-05:00May 19th, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

And there appeared to them parted tongues as if were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2).

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

The scene of the first Christian Pentecost, as described in the Book of Acts, only lasted for a few minutes—perhaps an hour. The historic event was limited in time and space. But the mystery contained in this supernatural occurrence cascades down through the ages and ever renews the Church and the face of the earth.

Over the centuries spiritual tongues of fire have appeared at regular intervals. Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict was one such spiritual tongue of fire. Saint Francis was such a flame, as were Saint Dominic and Saint Ignatius […]

Ascension 2024

2024-05-18T11:43:37-05:00May 9th, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

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

Everything about the feast of the Ascension speaks to us of the vertical dimension of human existence. Ye men of Galilee, why wonder you, looking up to heaven? This seems very normal in the context of the Christian faith that has us say so often, Our Father who art in Heaven. Not only does our faith point us in the direction of higher things—of celestial matters, of heavenly realities—but also it orients our whole being toward a supernatural destiny, an entirely new reality that surpasses even the highest physical objects we can see or imagine. We are Christians: all of this is our birthright. By virtue of our Holy Baptism, we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Much of modern society and of […]

A Word That Moves Heaven And Earth

2024-08-17T15:38:13-05:00April 13th, 2024|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

There is a little word whose worth is impossible to measure. Its origins are somewhat mysterious, but it emerges from the prayer of ancient Israel and echoes down the ages, animating the prayers of the early Christians and finding a place even in the final chapters of the Apocalypse. It is especially present in the Church’s liturgy at Easter and throughout Paschaltide. It contains the Divine Name and much more. You have no doubt guessed by now what this little word is.Sunday Vespers Alleluia Antiphon

Saint John heard it sung with a voice that shook the heavens: “I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of […]

Annunciation 2024 (Transferred)

2024-04-20T16:58:48-05:00April 8th, 2024|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

Today, as it sometimes happens, we celebrate the solemnity of the Annunciation, under the glorious light of the Resurrection of Christ. How the brightness of the Risen Lord enhances today’s celebration! It seems that we find here a perfect blending of the two great facets of the Christian faith, Incarnation and Redemption. What was announced to Mary of Nazareth, concerning the child to be conceived in her virginal womb, finds in the empty Tomb of Easter and the glorified Body of Christ its full accomplishment.

At the dawn of History, when the world began, God uttered His multiple “fiat”, Let there be” : “Let there be light…; Let there be a firmament…; Let the waters that are under heaven be gathered together…” (Gen. 1: […]

The Wind in the Wilderness

2024-08-17T15:52:52-05:00January 13th, 2024|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

Poised on the threshold of a new year of God’s grace, while we prayerfully consider the challenges that confront us, whether in the world in general, in our American society (on the brink of mental, if not material civil war), or even in the Church, we are tempted by discouragement. Is our world not going to be ripped apart? As Catholic Christians, we are taught to cultivate the theological virtue of hope, but the human landscape that surrounds us seems very much to be taking the shape of a wilderness. How shall we manage?

Well, in fact, if we can free ourselves for a moment from the cultural shallows, where all things tend to descend into mud and muck, if we can lift our heads again like […]

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