Abbot's Notebook

Abbot Christian take a short walk through the Abbotsfield with the chickens and donkey.

A video offering from our Brother David featuring his hike across the Chama river mid January set to music he composed. The Chama River has been frozen for 2 months now with many layers of snow on top. We often cross the river in the summer when the water is warm, but...

Abbot Christian explains the mural on our refectory wall, behind the head table, portraying saints of the Old and New Testament. The work was done some twenty years ago by Abbot Damian Higgins of Holy Transfiguration Byzantine Catholic Monastery, Redwood Valley...

A revision of the oblate talk given on December 20th 2020 about the O Antiphons.  

Abbot Christian discuses the individual horses present at the Monastery in October of 2020. The Sixth installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors. Link to our Video on YouTube

Abbot Christian discuses the history of the equestrian program at the Monastery. The fifth installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors. Link to our Video on YouTube

Abbot Christian discuses the wool produced from our flock of Navajo Churro sheep. The fourth installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors. Our spun wool is not yet for sale, but we hope to make it so...

Abbot Christian introduces our Navajo Churro flock and their guardian Donkey. The third installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors. Link to our Video on YouTube

Abbot Christian welcomes you this time to our summer garden. The second installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors.

Abbot Christian welcomes you to visit us virtually. Enjoy our first installment of our video series. It is sent with our love and prayers for all our family, friends and benefactors.

Dear Friends, I plan to launch in the coming week or two a video series from here at the Monastery. Not wishing to risk the possibility of putting viewers to sleep with well-intended pious platitudes, I will be creating hopefully informative and relaxing videos...

Dear Friends in Christ, If you are feeling cooped up, which is completely understandable, you may still be looking for things to do at home. I recently saw an article about creating really unattractive flower vases from discarded paper cartons and the plastic...

I have been remiss in posting a new Notebook page. I confess I have been more interested of late with my “Quote for the Day” and accompanying photograph on our News Page. I hope you are enjoying those daily postings. As a photographer and avid reader, I have been...

Friends have asked how we are doing at the Monastery. Happily, I can report that we are well, thanks be to God, and carrying on with our regular life and duties in this beautiful Chama canyon setting. We monks range in age from 23 to 93 (I am 67!), so we have to be...

When I was growing up in the middle of the last century, attending Catholic Grade school in Portland, Oregon, I recall thinking that a “vocation,” was something one “got” or “had,” and specifically to the priesthood or religious life, to be a Catholic priest, brother...

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

These days our hearts and minds likely focus on many practical questions, such as: will I contract the novel coronavirus? What about my family and friends, will they be spared? How long will this pandemic last?  Will it decrease and then rise up again some months...

Almost every day brothers in the community or those writing from outside the monastery ask about an adequate spiritual response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I have read various and sundry approaches to the question and one of the best I have found comes from Abbot...

Silence is considered an important monastic practice. Much ink has been spilled on the topic, including entire books, but is silence something just for monks to value? By no means! Into every life some silence should fall. Why? Because we are rational creatures, who...

The monastic life requires a spirit of sacrifice at the beginning, but really throughout the entire journey to God. What is sacrifice? At its root are the words: “to make holy.” In ancient pagan practice, sacrifice meant offering incense, food, possessions, animals,...