Letters to the Friends

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

They are the silent figures that fill the background of every monastic adventure, the humble laborers, who hoisted the stones upon the walls of the great Abbeys and tilled the fields of much of Europe. They are rare survivors of a Catholic Christian Christendom and a calmer age, the stuff of legends and of tall-tales — and yet, all in all, they are still today a very real part of the rich history of the religious life. We call them, unpretentiously enough, “the Brothers.” Rarely has their history been documented.

In the early days of the monastic life — in Egypt for example, in the fourth century — very few monks were Priests, very few did studies as we think of them today. Even in the monasteries […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

There is a passage from the Psalms that is dear to contemplative souls of all ages. In English it is thus rendered: “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face, from the disturbance of men” (Psalm 30). This is the monk’s delight: to dwell habitually in silence, close to God, in order to delve deeply into the treasures of Divine Wisdom and Love.

However, there are moments when a monastery must become a beacon, when it must be the “city seated on a mountain” about which Christ spoke, and which “cannot be hid”. Such was the case this past April 12th, when joy abounded as a great number of our friends made their way to the monastery, despite much high-water left by recent storms, in […]

Laudate Dominum de caelis… Praise the Lord from the heavens… Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all the deeps; Ye fire and hail, ye snow and ice, ye storm winds and obey His word. (Psalm 148)

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

Here is a parable. When the monks make their way to the near-freezing Oratory, well before dawn, to sing once again the Psalms of David and the whole Divine Office of the Church, something poetic (for lack of a better term) occurs, something quite unnoticed by the world of politicians and of CEOs, of Hollywood celebrities and of the vast number of sleeping citizens, something sublime in its utter simplicity.

Man truly is a microcosm, a miniature of the created universe. He is part mineral, part plant, […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

If an uninformed observer had happened upon the scene at Clear Creek on the cold morning of January 2, 2008, he or she might have thought that something similar to D-day was underway. Thankfully, no actual ships were involved, but throngs of vehicles, including trucks hauling every manner of trailer, could be seen lining up and pulling into position between the metal barn that had become our Oratory for the past eight years and the big log cabin, where we had taken our monastic meals since the first days. Instead of soldiers headed for the coasts of Normandy, the human figures here were a mixture of laymen, including teenagers and younger boys, and of monks, all arrayed in their most unpretentious work clothing.

Suddenly this observer would […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek,

Once again — one wonders by what miracle — the world has survived yet another year, and the season takes us swiftly now towards the feast of the Nativity. Even the most hardened of human hearts feels a tinge of warmth at the thought of Christmas, and children surpass the more mature members of society in capturing the spirit of joyful expectation that is abroad.

In our monasteries, many beautiful customs are kept on Christmas Eve. One is our family meeting after the first Vespers, which takes place in the room we refer to as the “Scriptorium.” This is where our Christmas tree will have been set up and the many Christmas cards and gifts put on display for the monks to peruse during the relative leisure that […]

Montes in circuitu eius: et Dominus in circuitu poplui sui.
Mountains are round about it: so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth now and for ever. (Psalm 124)

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

Although, as the adage would have it, “a monk out of his cloister is like a fish out of water,” it is sometimes necessary to leave the monastic paradise for a moment, in order to accomplish the designs of Divine Providence in conformity with holy obedience.

In early September, it was thus my privilege to accompany Father Abbot of Fontgombault Abbey (our Mother-house) to Cuzco, Peru, where a new Order of Missionaries, The Servants of the Poor of the Third World, has its headquarters. The object of the visit was the crowning of the statue of […]

Dear Friend,

This letter begins with a story. It is the story of the grace of God and a group of quite ordinary young men — a “band of brothers” — who were called upon to live a great adventure some thirty years ago.

In the fall of 1975, I finished my active duty in the United States Marine Corps and was ready to pursue an ideal that had previously come into my head during the time I spent at a large, mid-western university studying the Great Books of Western Civilization.

How did those three professors persuade so many of us, so very much in tune with our turbulent and confused generation to shift our radicalism to a higher and better sphere? In any case, I found myself once again packing my […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

There seem to have been two fundamental reactions to the recent Apostolic Letter by Motu Proprio, of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum. For some it represents a mere paternal gesture in favor of a small minority of Catholics lingering on in a past age; for others it appears as a major act of the Magisterium that will have the most far-reaching effects on the entire Church. I must say that the monks of Our Lady of Clear Creek belong wholeheartedly to the second way of thinking.

A long time before being raised to the Supreme Pontificate, Cardinal Ratzinger recognized the appropriateness of a return to the older form of the Roman Missal, but he did not think this would be possible. In 2003 he wrote […]

“Let all guests that come be received like Christ Himself, for He will say: ‘I was a stranger and ye took me in.’ And let fitting honor be shown to all, especially, however, to such as are of the household of the faith and to pilgrims.” (Rule, chap. 53)

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

The history of Christian hospitality is a rich one and a worthy illustration of the spirit of Faith and Charity that has guided the Church through two millennia and more. Angels have come to earth disguised as strangers looking for a warm welcome. Pope St. Gregory the Great is said to have once received a pilgrim who disappeared into thin air as the saint was about to pour water over his hands as a sign of hospitality. That […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

It has been said that there is a vocation for places just as there is a vocation for people, for souls. Fontgombault Abbey is just one of those places. During its history of over nine centuries, countless are the graces that have radiated from this hallowed ground, where so many generations of monks have come and gone. The story of Our Lady of a Happy Death is one of the most beautiful of these favors from Heaven.

Long had the statue of Our Lady, seated “in majesty” as they refer to this type of artistic representation (Mary seated on a throne, arrayed like a queen of France, with the Child Jesus on her lap), watched over the […]