-Dom Prosper Gueranger
September 2005
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-intent ioned 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 out-
-. ward 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. wilJ 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 does this in a personal way. Liturgy accomplishes this in the social sphere. Is there any such influence at work in your nei ghbor
hood? Does anyone or anything broadcasr rhose ripples of Christian culture? Does anything bring thal
silent presence of eternity into the hustle and bustle of your day-to-day existence?
The famous Benedictine, Dom Prosper Guenmger, was born two hundred years ago on April 4, 1805. He came into the world in a little French town named Sable, situated along the Sarthe River, not far from an abandoned monastery, Saim Pierre de Solesmes, which was ro dominate the landscape of his boyhood imagination.
Some years later. while visiting what was left of another monastery, Saint Martin at Marmoutiers. Prosper felt a profound sadness well up withi.n him before these sacred ruins. He was filled with an ardent desire to see monastic life flourish again in france, where it had been destroyed during the French Revolution. After his priestly ordination, he set about to save the old monastery of Solesmes from being sold as a stone quarry. Overcoming numerous difficulties, he eventually succeeded in acquiring rhe property and established a small community of Benedictine monks there in 1833.
In 1837, at the age of 32. he became the first Abbot of Solesmes.
Dom Gueranger soon became the head of a large monastic family destined to form a group of monas teries or "congregation." God had endowed him with an acute sense of the Benedictine spirit, thus enabling him to bring back to life a tradition fourteen centuries old. He became a true patriarch for this spiritual family.
Dom Gueranger's most formidable contribution to the life of the Church, however, was in the domain of liturgy. He maintained -against many determined critics-that the f ullness of Catholic J ife must be centered once again around the public celebration of the Church's solemn Iiturgy. The Church's Magisterium has since confinned this intuition: "[E]very l iturgical celebration, because it is an action of Chri st the priest and of His Body the Church. is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other
Foundation for the Ann unci ation Monastery of Clear Creek
51-\U..f West Monastery Road • Hu l bert , OK 7444l• Phone: (918) 772-2454 • Fax: (918) 772-1.0• www.clearcreekmonks.org
action of the Church can match its claim to efficacy, nor equal the degree of it." (Sacrosanctum ConciJium o. 7) Dom Gueranger understood that the liturgy was the principal means of restoring the Faith after the decimation of churches under the French Revolution. He advocated fidelity to the living tradition handed down by the Roman Church.
Through his best-known work, The Liturgical Year , in which he explained the liturgical texts and rites, Dom Gueranger succeeded in renewing the interest of the faithful in the liturgical treasures of the Church. ln the general preface to this work he wrote: "The prayer of the Church is the most pleasing to the ear and heart of God, and therefore. the most efficacious of all prayers. Happy, then, is he who
prays with the Church, and unites his own petitions witl1 those of the B1ide... Prayer said in union with the Church is the light of understanding, it is the fire of divine love for the heart. .. Open your hearts. children of the Catholic Church, and come and pray the prayer of our Mother."
Carried along by what he called
"the marvelous waters of the liturgy:' Dom Gueranger and his monks knew how to close their eyes and ears to
the distTactions around them. ''One
of the great happinesses of our state,'' he once observed... is to let ourselves go with the current,
because the liturgical Life is a great and mighty river." (cited in Solesmes and Dom Gueranger by Dom Guy Oury. p. 103)
Divine Providence seems to have disposed that Solesmes should resemble the vision of the Temple in chapter 47 of Ezechiel, where the waters issue forth in abundance from
the threshold, in such a manner that "wherever the river goes every living creature which swarms will live (v.9) while"... [O jn the banks. on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees.. . Their frujt wiJl be for food, and their leaves for healing." (v. 12). Indeed, the liturgy i s food and medi cine for a world dying of spiritual hunger and malady.
Having issued forth from the same monastic tradi tion, our little foundation at Clear Creek hopes to continue the story begun at Solesmes and continued at Notre Dame de Fontgombault, the Abbey that
founded us in 1999. Being situated in the heartland of America, it is our fondest hope that we might
contribute in some small way in restoring the life-giving waters of Catholic culture to our homeland, by s impl y being what we are as Benedictine monks. The essential task is that of perfectiJlg the monastic family here. We ask your continued prayers and moral support for that.
There also remains the more practical matter of completing ou r monastic buildings. Thanks to your very generous financial support. I am happy to say that we stiJJ hope to continue our construction project later this year or early next spring. The challenge remains daunting nonetheless, as the price of building ever increases. We cont inue each day to recite the Chaplet of the Child Jesus, who is our main "fundraiser,'' along with the great St. Joseph and, of course, Our Lady of the Annunciation.
May l1er loving gaze be upon you and your families.
(r.1N1 V)(f\I r rr
br. Philip Anderson, Prior