Letters to the Friends

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

As we begin the final phase of construction at Clear Creek Abbey, it has been determined that Manhattan Construction will once again oversee the lion’s share of the project. In addition, several monastic artisans will be adding their talents to these efforts, most notably in the areas of woodworking, floor design, metalworking and stone masonry. As we strive to build something beautiful for God, we seek to raise our hearts to Him in a way that engages both our bodily senses and our minds, such that we are not only reflecting on our prayers and hymns and devotions, but we are immersing ourselves in the physical space of the abbey itself, where the harmony and proportion of the various parts are integrated as a whole.

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

As I have mentioned in the past, it is our monastic custom on Christmas Eve to gather as a family and reflect on the year that has passed and the year to come—all in the perspective of the incomparable mystery and joy of the Birth of Christ.

Our thoughts will turn to family members who are suffering or who have left this life here below. We are likewise mindful of the multiple tragedies that grip our fellow human beings in various places around the world.

There is a strict duty for Christians, despite it all, to rejoice in the Lord, as we are reminded during Advent (“Rejoice in the Lord always” exclaims Saint Paul on the Third Sunday, […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

From all eternity the Word of God, which is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, proceeds from the Father as His beloved Son in the loving breath, the Ghost, the Divine Spirit, of God common to both Father and Son. Holy Scripture teaches us these great things that surpass our understanding but which enlighten and charm our souls, especially at Christmas. And there is more—much more—because the Son, the Word, somehow, by some manner that God alone could contrive, was made small, a Child, an abridged version, an abbreviated Word, so small that He could fit into a Manger-Crib in an obscure town of Palestine. And this diminutive Word Jesus, came […]

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, through 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 […]