Letters to the Friends

I myself feel that there is nothing more delightful than when the festive mood reigns in a whole people’s hearts and the banqueters listen to a minstrel from their seats in the hall, while the tables before them are laden with bread and meat, and a steward carries round the wine he has drawn from the bowl and fills their cups. This, to my way of thinking, is something very much like perfection. — The Odyssey

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

Although differing in many ways from Homer’s description above, the banquet which was held in support of Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery—on November 5th in Tulsa—was, in its own order, “something very much like perfection.”

We began this memorable evening by chanting a solemn Vespers service in […]

“Open your hearts, children of the Catholic Church, and come and pray the prayer of our Mother.” – Dom Prosper Guéranger

Dear Friends of Clear Creek Monastery,

Is something wrong in your neighborhood? Does the social order seem to have slumped into chaos? In spite of all the well-intentioned words of sociologists and talk-show hosts, perhaps a more radical remedy is needed.

Culture moves out from the center in concentric circles – something like the way ripples move outward from the point of impact, when a stone is tossed into the center of a pond. The rest of culture, including popular music and art, will only get better if beauty radiates from the silent center of things, from hearts and minds on fire with the love of the one true God. Prayer […]

A Benedictine At Heart

The Church stands and falls with the Liturgy. When the adoration of the divine Trinity declines, when the faith no longer appears in its fullness in the Liturgy of the Church, when man’s words, his thoughts, his intentions are suffocating him, then faith will have lost the place where it is expressed and where it dwells. For that reason, the true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy is the center of any renewal of the Church whatever.

Dear Friend,

These words, written by the Holy Father while he was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, resonate deeply in the monastic soul. By virtue of his vows and the very rhythm of his life, the Benedictine monk is the man […]

Dear Friend,

Lenten greetings to you from Clear Creek Monastery. The response to our Christmas mailing was most encouraging, and we want to thank each and every one of you who contributed to this monumental undertaking to build “something beautiful for God.” Many of you wrote me regarding the Gregorian Chant CD, expressing your appreciation for being able to share in this most beautiful prayer of the church. Many of you also wrote requesting that I share some of the history of the construction project to date. It has been a fascinating journey and I am happy to recount the story.

Long before we selected an architect, we already had a fairly precise vision of what the monastery would look like. We wanted to firmly root our monastery in the rich Benedictine tradition […]

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 — “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 Marine Corps […]

Dear Friends of Clear Creek,

On this ancient and glorious solemnity of the Assumption, I wanted to bring you up to date with respect to recent developments at our foundation in Oklahoma. We seem to have reached a critical point in the history of the American monastery, and I thought you would be interested in knowing a little bit about it all. It is, we believe, a special hour, a time for prayer and a time for action, a very special moment of the grace of God.

To tell the truth things continue to go very well for the monastery at Clear Creek: the community now counts twenty-five and we hope to admit two new Postulants in the near future. The community will thus have more than doubled in less than five years.

Trahe nos, post te curremus. “Draw us, O Virgin Immaculate; we will run after thee…” (from the Liturgy of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception)

Dear Friends of Clear Creek,

It would take more than one small newsletter to relate all the events, that have marked the growth of our foundation in Oklahoma this past year. I will do my best, however, to satisfy the interest you so kindly express, and to help you truly become, in this way, part of the monastic family as its history unfolds.

As was the case already the previous year, much of our attention and activity was focused again on various aspects of our building project. How could it be otherwise in these first years of our existence? What more important thing does a baby have […]

Dear Friends of Our Lady of the Annunciation,

The just shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow up like the cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.

In the light of recent revelations concerning acts of horrible abuse committed by members of the Catholic clergy, these words, taken from Psalm 91, might seem something of a cruel joke, an increasingly impossible ideal. How will any boy or girl be able to grow up strong in the Faith, to “‘flourish like the palm-tree,” when these unspeakable forms of scandal bring such bitter disillusionment to their young souls? Apart from the tragedy of clerical scandals, we are all aware of the spiritual bankruptcy of our materialistic societies, where the Lord and His […]

Dear Friends of Our Lady of the Annunciation,

“Quasi modo geniti infantes….” “As new-born babes, desire the rational milk without guile.” (I Petri 2)

As I mentioned last year, in our monasteries it is customary that on Christmas Eve Father Abbot give a motto taken from Holy Scripture or from the Sacred Liturgy, outlining a spiritual program for the monks to follow in the year to come. This Christmas Father Antoine gave to all the monks of Fontgombault and her daughter-houses (including Our Lady of Clear Creek) this passage from the first Letter of Saint Peter, which forms the Introit of Low Sunday, Octave day of Easter: “Quasi modo geniti infantes….” “As new-born babes, desire the rational milk without guile.” The reason for the choice of this text is closely linked to the […]

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it ; unless the Lord guard the city, he watcheth in vain that guardeth it.”

Dear Friends of Our Lady of the Annunciation,

How often have we experienced the truth of these verses of Psalm 126 since the official inauguration ceremonies which took place on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes last year! Many a storm has blown through our neck of the Oklahoman hills, threatening to carry away our barn­chapel and our little wooden houses, but by the grace of God and the gracious protection of Our Lady, we are still here, albeit with a few holes in the roof as a result of the most recent of these ‘tempests’, which though short-lived proved to be of particular violence.