Monastery News

Our monks continue to produce beautiful hand-woven rugs, made from 100% Navajo-Churro wool. We who are not weavers greatly admire the craftsmaship of our brothers and tip our hats to them.

A little later this summer we will have a number of rugs available for sale in our Giftshop. Consider it an incentive to visit us and find our weavings and other ideal gifts for Christmas giving!

We continue to be open to day visitors, seven days a week. Visiting hours are from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Sunday Mass at 9:15 am.

Greetings, prayers and thanks to all our families and friends.

Abbot Christian and the monks

In the 1960s, a “British-invasion” musical group sang a song called, “I’ll Follow the Sun.” The sunflower does just that, and in Spanish the name of the flower is “girasol,” literally, “turning toward the sun.”

Our rainy season is usually at this time of year, and a variety of wild sunflowers begins to appear along the road to and from the Monastery, technically called “Forest Service Road 151.”

This year, with less rain in the Chama Canyon, there are fewer of the sunflowers, though hopefully more will bloom in August.

The spiritual lesson from the sunflower might be the importance of constantly turning to the Lord, through thick or thin, rain or shine. Never give up, in other words.

This past year and a half has been among the most challenging time in many people’s lives. The call is to stay calm and carry on, as a British era well before the 1960s expressed it. It is still a valid reminder.

The photo below was taken on July 28th, some miles from the Monastery, but on Forest Service Road 151.

Greetings to all and assurance of our prayers.

Abbot Christian and the monks

Our monastic refectory sometimes doubles as a space for addressing envelopes for the many thank you letters from the Abbot to our benefactors.

The kind assistance we are receiving for our recent medical appeal is encouraging and very much appreciated and a great comfort for the usual and unexpected health issues which we face each year.

Many who contribute also ask for prayers, and these we remember in our public and private times of prayer.

May the Lord reward with many graces all those who do good to us.

Abbot Christian and the monks

Last Sunday our cook for the day, Brother Dominic, came up with a unique creation. Might we call it a “Neapolitan cake,” taking inspiration from Neapolitan ice cream?

Brother Dominic was serving thirty of us monks, and wishing to satisfy our various tastes, opted for a single cake (see the photo below), but with a strawberry section, a lemon section and a carrot-cake section.

It all melded beautifully in the oven, was frosted, and a good time was had by all. Some brothers chose just one of the three sections and some took a slice of each of the three flavors.

We are blessed with good and creative chefs among the brethren.

Lord, give us this day our daily bread, both supersubstantial and ordinary.

Abbot Christian and the monks

With recent rainfall, even if sporadic, the Chama Canyon Wilderness is blooming with Russian sage and yucca plants.

While the purple-flowered sage can be used in salads, in making dyes, as well as possessing medicinal properties, we have the plants primarily for ornamental purposes and for flower arrangements in church. The sage flowers last several days in water.

The yucca flowers remain outdoors, and while beautiful to behold, cannot be cut for flower arrangements. The delicate white flowers extend from spiney sword-shaped leaves and a tall stem.

As the photo below displays, we are greatly blessed to live in the midst of desert beauty.

With many greetings and continued prayers.

Abbot Christian and the monks

Benedictine monks typically take their meals each day in silence. At Christ in the Desert we do likewise, but at the midday meal we listen to a brother reading first a portion of Scripture, then from a book selected by the Abbot or recommended to him by one of the monks.

At the end of the meal we listen to a portion of the Rule of Saint Benedict, then from the Lives of the Saints who will be remembered the next day in the liturgy.

At table we are currently listening to an enjoyable book called, “Fleeing Herod: A Journey Through Coptic Egypt with the Holy Family,” by James Cowan and published by Paraclete Press.

Scripture tells us that the Holy Family, that is, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, fled for a time to Egypt, to avoid persecution at the hands of the tyrant King Herod.

The holy image below, painted on a piece of Egypyian papyrus, is of the Holy Family and hangs in our corridor on the way to church. It is a reminder of the challenges and often tragedies of displaced and immigrant peoples.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, displaced from your homeland, the Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for all displaced and immigrant peoples.

Abbot Christian and the monks

After a hiatus of several weeks, our rose bushes are blooming once again. In addition to adding beauty to our cloister garden, the yellow, red, white and pink roses provide lovely flowers for decorating our Monastery church.

In answer to prayers, we received a prolonged torrential rainfall on Wednesday afternoon, July 21st. It is amazing what such a fast arriving and departing rainfall can do. It seems to quickly “wake up” the parched land and cause grass to spring up.

We need more rain, but are grateful for any amount that falls. The rain also cools down the daytime temperatures, of course, and that is appreciated too.

We are working as quickly as we can to acknowledge and thank the many who have generously responded to our recent appeal for medical needs of the Monastery.

From the heart, thank you and prayers to all who show us kindness. As Carmelites like to say: May God reward you!

Abbot Christian and the monks

Though they are not usually in bloom until August, the first Rose of Sharon has appeared in our Saint John Paul II Meditation Garden, located between the Monastery church and the Guest Reception building.

Rose of Sharon work well as cut flowers and will be used in our church at the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

While eastern New Mexico has gotten a fair amount of precipitation over the past several weeks, western New Mexico is lagging far behind in rainfall. We continue to pray for rain and for all those effected by the drought.

With our greetings and prayers for good health and safety in this Summer season.

Abbot Christian and the monks

Our hens have become fairly tame, are easy to catch and seem to enjoy being held. At times they even vie for attention.

Pictured here with Abbot Christian are Pauline and Flo. Our forty-five hens were raised at the Monastery, purchased when then were just a few days old. Since it was winter when the chicks arrived, they were given quarters with heat lamps until they were several weeks old. They were also fed special feed for chicks.

Our flock is very “free range,” the lap of luxury for chickens, which they take for granted, and produce hearty and healthy eggs for daily fare for the monks’ table.

Blessed new week.

Abbot Christian and the monks

For the first time, two yucca plants outside our Monastery church are blooming in the full summer sun. For several years the plants have been growing in size, but this is the first year they are producing flowers. It is an impressive sight.

With stems some ten feet tall, the distinctive white blossoms of the yucca last for many weeks once they bloom.

The yucca is the state flower of New Mexico, though it can be found in many parts of North America.

Below the church, and visible in the photo here, are two of our horses, Canela and Poncho, part of our peaceable kingdom.

Greetings and prayers.

Abbot Christian and the monks

Another set of important doors on our property are those that lead to the main residence area for the monks, what we call “the cloister.”

The cloister doors were built nearly twenty-five years ago, and apart from occasional oiling to refurbish the wood, they have stood the test of time and served their purpose well.

As in most households, some parts of our property are for reserved for the monks and not open to the public. This is not a matter of shunning, but of allowing us to have quiet areas to ourselves, for some amount of privacy and prayer.

The cloister doors open to a covered walkway where we regularly assemble for procession into church for Sunday morning Mass and Sunday evening Vespers. The Latin term for our assembling for the procession into church is “statio,” which literally means “standing,” and from which our word “station” is derived.

The hardware for our cloister doors was crafted by Tom Joyce, an internationally recognized blacksmith and MacArthur Foundation fellow from Santa Fe. Tom also made the beautiful handrailing for the staircase leading down to the cloister proper, where most of our monks have their rooms (we call them “cells”).

Christ called himself “the Door” (see Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 9) and it is Christ who is our sure Way to God’s House.

Blessed weekend!

Abbot Christian and the monks

On Sundays our midday meal is buffet-style. “Buffet” is a French word, of course, and we all know what it means, and the French call buffet-style meals “self-service.” As they say today, “go figure.”

In any case, our Sunday lunch is more informal and accompanied by recorded classical music or chant.

All our meals are in silence, except on big feasts and special occasions. Think Christmas, Easter and monastic professions, for example.

At the principal meal each day, served by the monks, a passage from the Bible is read from the readers’ stand, then a book of some edifying topic. No novels or comics, in other works.

The monastic refectory, where we enjoy our meals, is spacious and well lit with large windows on three sides.

Just as our spiritual life is especially nourished in the church each day, so our physical lives are sustained by simple but hearty meals, prepared by two monks each day on a rotating basis.

The monks in the photo below are Brother Boniface and Brother Savio.

Abbot Christian and the monks

This year we are celebrating the Solemnity of Saint Benedict on July 12^th. Normally the solemnity is kept on July 11^th, but because that date was a Sunday this year, we transferred the celebration to July 12^th.

In his Rule, Saint Benedict gives specific ways that one should follow to reach the goal of life in the kingdom of the Father. The path that Saint Benedict indicates includes the ways of obedience, humility, prayer and fraternal charity. These could be called the “essential lessons” or “required courses,” that will be given to those who enter the school of the Lord’s service. In a sense, Saint Benedict does not teach a developed theology of the spiritual life, as later saints and mystics do, but he does set forth important principles for learning the ways that lead to God and what should be avoided in order to stay near to the Lord.

The basis of all of Saint Benedict’s teaching is, of course, faith. Apart from faith the program of monastic life makes no sense. Faith in Christ and faith in His Church are fundamental for any progress in virtue. Making a commitment in faith, such as to the monastic way, creates an atmosphere where the whole of one’s life takes shape and has meaning. The beauty of the Rule from one thousand five hundred years ago is precisely that it has been shaping lives ever since the Rule was written, about the year 500 AD.

Jesus taught His followers: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Saint Benedict is reiterating the same teaching. We daily carry out the commands of Christ in the context of our living community, our superiors and all those who enter our life in one way or another. All of us are called to love, conducting ourselves in such a way that we can be conduits of God’s love, extending it to one another.

In addition to our words and deeds, Saint Benedict is clear that we must cultivate a deep interior life, realizing that we are a work in progress, but also always in the presence of God, rain or shine. Attentiveness to the Lord by full participation in the Liturgy of the Church (Mass and the Divine Office), praying in secret, doing lectio divina, are crucial for a life that is centered on Christ.

Communion with the Lord whenever and however we can promote it, for ourselves and one another, is really what the life is all about. Without any specific or rigid doctrine of prayer, Saint Benedict nonetheless encourages that the desire for God increase within us, day by day, year by year. But there is definitely a Benedictine spirituality presented by Saint Benedict; namely, the love of learning and the desire for God, as the late Benedictine scholar Dom Jean Leclercq expressed the notion.

It is a high purpose for which we have come to the monastery, to be partakers of God’s Kingdom, beginning even now in this life, and fully realized in the life to come.

Saint Paul expresses well what should be our aspirations, writing near the end of his letter to the Galatians: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.”

As we commemorate today our holy Father Saint Benedict, may we all receive the grace to experience in our hearts the inexpressible sweetness of God’s love, which Saint Benedict highly recommends, for our eternal benefit.

Greetings and prayers to all our families and friends on this great day commemorating Saint Benedict.

Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB