Letters to the Friends

… and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock (Mt. 7:25).

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

On May 22nd one of the most devastating tornadoes recorded in modern American history (the 7th deadliest) or in world history (the 27th) ripped through the mid-west. You may not have been aware — nor was I, being in France at the time for the General Chapter meeting of the Benedictine Congregation of Solesmes — that Clear Creek Abbey was directly in the path of this storm. It touched down in Joplin, Missouri as a ER5 multiple-vortex tornado, claiming more than 150 lives and wreaking some $3 billion of destruction. These storms generally move […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

The Gospel clearly shows the Blessed Virgin Mary to be one of the greatest contemplatives of all time — in fact the greatest, if we exclude her son from the contest. Her exterior actions are few and far between, but they are decisive. She speaks little, but each word is a gem preciously kept from generation to generation. Throughout her life — from her Immaculate Conception to the Annunciation and the virgin birth; from her presence on Calvary to the Upper Room at Pentecost — all these events are of an intensely spiritual nature, or at least tending toward the more spiritual and contemplative dimension of human existence. In Mary we find nothing trivial, nothing petty. No doubt this relates to the fact that her heart became, as […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

A few weeks ago Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey received the visit of a saintly missionary, Father Giovanni Salerno, founder of the Missionary Servants of the Poor of the Third World, whom we have known for many years, through his visits, both at Fontgombault Abbey in France and, now, here in Oklahoma. He and his fellow missionary, Father Vincent, came to ask, not for money or other material resources, but for the monks’ prayers. As he reminded us, once upon a time the earlier missionaries in Peru (where Father Giovanni works) came to the convent of Saint Teresa of Avila to ask the very same thing.

Rather than try to explain why we have accepted to help these particular missionaries— without abandoning our contemplative form of […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

The fact is inescapable: if there is something right with human existence, if God’s creation is filled with wonders both natural and supernatural, if Christ’s victory over sin and death stands quite complete and definitive, there is also something awry in the universe, something terribly wrong in the world.

St. Benedict takes it for granted and never loses sight of this reality. From the outset of his Rule for monks, he makes it clear in what kind of place we live:

Hearken, O my son, to the precept of your master, and incline the ear of your heart: willingly receive and faithfully fulfill the admonition of your loving father, that you may return by the labor of obedience to Him from whom you had […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

Here is a little path you can follow through the days ahead, through the twelve days of the great feast of the humility of God, that is to say — the feast of Christmas. It is an upward path actually, a spiritual step-ladder. Its top reaches higher than the Christmas tree, higher even than the Star of Bethlehem. It is St. Benedict’s gift to the Order of Monks and to the world, the ladder of humility. It has twelve rungs, one for each day. It is for you too.

Jesus, Our Little Lord, followed it in reverse. He came down this ladder from Heaven, humbling Himself to a degree undreamt of before, from the beginning of world. Being God, He took upon Himself a true huuman nature, […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

We have often said it, but the monk truly lives by liturgical prayer. St.Benedict calls it simply The Work of God. This great prayer can be accomplished anywhere, even in a field where the monks may be working too far from the Abbey in order to return for one of the Hours. But the solemn celebration of the Divine Work — that is, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — requires a special setting.

A recurring thought that has haunted the dreams and waking moments of the monks of Clear Creek for the past ten years could be formulated in words such as these: “Some day we will finish laying the foundation, and actually raise up walls toward heaven.” Of course one might point out the fact […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek,

Domina Angelorum, ora pro nobis.

There is a popular French saying to the effect that “it is the queen bee that makes the hive”, c’est la reine qui fait la ruche. In a monastery such as ours this image has a religious counter-part. We like to think that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the true Abbess of the place: it is she who stands behind the abbot and invisibly radiates spiritual life to the community. This is a kind of chivalrous notion, a throwback, perhaps, to the Middle Ages — some might think it slightly tinged with Romanticism. Nevertheless, it is a fact that we live our day — today existence in the mysterious presence of our Patron Saint, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we are quite happy […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek,

As a great Christian author of antiquity (Theophilus, Letter to Autolycus, II, 13) pointed out, when God decided to build the world He started with the roof, that is, with the heavens, and then worked His way down. For us poor mortals construction happens the other way around, beginning under the surface of the earth and continuing upward — out of the ground into the air — until the ridgeline is reached and the bell tower completed.

Thanks to your help, the monks of Clear Creek Abbey have been blessed with several large and beautiful buildings, but the most important of them, the church, has remained below ground level in the form of a crypt. By the grace of God, however, we plan to begin construction of our […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek,

When the three great brass bells arrived here at Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery in early January, little did we know that they would soon ring out in celebration of the most important news in our ten year history. The bells were a gift from a “daughter” foundation of Fontgombault Abbey, and arrived from France by boat at the beginning of the new year. A kind friend of the monastery drove a large truck all the way to Texas to retrieve them. These are very good bronze bells (they weigh almost three tons), and together they form a “peal” — a set of three tones that are in perfect harmony, on the notes D, F, and G. Having already been consecrated, each bell has her name inscribed in […]