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It would be the understatement of the millennium to suggest that, perhaps, something is awry in the world at present and that a global health crisis has sadly impacted the way we live as Catholic Christians. Not only are we witnesses to the spectacle of so many people growing ill and even dying, but the very Bread of Life entrusted to us from Heaven has been locked up in such a manner that the great number of the faithful is unable to receive this vital spiritual nourishment. I blame no one in particular.

Pandemic need not become Pandæmonium. After all, the Holy Trinity is still supreme in Heaven; the choirs of Angels still hold together in perfect order; the stars continue to follow their perpetual track; the birds are already busy building nests; and, […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

In the following meditation one of our agricultural monks endeavors to have us see, in all its noble splendor and usefulness—amid the forest that surrounds it— the theological beauty of the tree. — br. Philip Anderson, abbot

“A tree hath hope….” The words of Job (14:7) come to mind as we reflect on our little tree nursery here at Clear Creek Monastery, as the days lengthen through February and plans for spring planting begin to take shape. There are a variety of trees present, each for a different purpose, all lined up in their three-gallon pots, awaiting the shovel which will prepare their new and final home in the earth. There are pear trees, both grafted and ungrafted, pine trees of a native variety, and […]

Look, the storm of the Lord!
   Wrath has gone forth,
   a whirling tempest;
   it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord will not turn back
   until he has executed and accomplished
   the intents of his mind.

—Jeremiah 23:19-20

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

In a world gone mad, where charity has grown cold and there is nothing less common now than common sense; in a time when religious persecution wears many masks and when all that is truly human is under attack by global strategies of the “culture of death”—targeting with especial virulence the family—we monks move forward in our own way, as boldly as possible, but treading softly. Under this winter landscape new life is real but hidden in the ground. New saints are being formed […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

According to a prominent thinker of the twentieth century, Simone Weil (she was not a Catholic Christian, but moving close the Church at the time of her premature death), “The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.” If this soul not yet received into the fold of Christ could make such a bold assertion, how much more should the Catholic faithful find in the beauty of creation the traces of God? With the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity the supernatural sense of wonder grows even greater, as the “proof” becomes tangible. Here is what the preface for Christmas in the Roman Missal tells us:

For by […]

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

It was ten years ago, on November 15, 2009, that our Father Dom François de Feydeau left us for God, after an aggressive brain tumor stole his earthly existence. For this true monk, illness and death were all part of the program of Christian perseverance and monastic life. Toward the end he wrote:

I am preparing myself for any eventuality, without anxiety and in peace. I am in the hand of God, to whom long ago I dedicated my life. All my life He has done nothing but good to me. [In facing death] I am following the straight line of my monastic vocation…What is important for me and helps me greatly is to understand the meaning of what is happening to me: I accepted […]