Got to pray Compline with the Trappists tonight

The RCIF (a spinoff of RCIA that my parish does for whole families) team took a group of our catechumens to the Abbey of New Clairvaux today, it's a Trappist Monastery about 25mins north of me. They've become pretty famous for their award winning winery, and a few years ago they completed a decades-long project to rebuild the 10th century chapter house from Santa Maria de Ovila in Spain here in California.

Anyway, I didn't realize part of our visit included joining the brothers for Compline. We waited in the chapter house and then they filed in, chanted the antiphons and then the Abbott, Fr Paul Mark, did the asperges. Hearing the voices of the brothers reverberate on those 1,100 year old walls just transported me, and made me think about how the true faith is timeless. It also kind of reignited an interest in me possibly joining the lay Cistercians.

I also didn't know this but they have first degree relics of Saint Francis and Saint Therese of Lisieux behind the organ, and we were all allowed check out the reliquary. I laid a hand on it, my wife and I wanna go back with our rosaries and touch them to it. My friend told me that one of the brothers said they all lay a hand on the reliquary every day and ask Saints Francis and Therese to guide their prayers.

I wanted to take video but I was trying to keep my two year old quiet (unsuccessfully).



I sure love being Catholic.

Michie said:

Beautiful! Sounds like you were very edified in your visit.

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I was, and I think my wife was as well. She's been unplugged from the group since she had the baby and she told one of our friends there last night "I didn't realize how much I missed you guys until I saw you!" We took her mom and the boys with us too, hopefully she enjoyed it. The boys were the most popular ones there lol.

JimR-OCDS said:

I love the Trappists! My wife and myself used to go on retreats at the nearby Abby in Spencer MA.
We also used to go to the Vespers and Benediction on Sundays.

Glad you and your wife had a spirit filled experience there!

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With the exception of maybe 1-2 other orders, I feel like Trappists are the most underappreciated. I suppose being contemplatives they're bound not to get the attention of mendicant orders like Dominicans and Franciscans, but I wish the Catholic world knew more about our Trappist brethren (and the Trappistines, I just learned yesterday there's a feminine conjugation for the name). Their spirituality is so unique, maybe it just appeals to me cause I strive to be a minimalist but it's really compelling.

A couple of the brothers there are 90+ (but there's also a good amount of younger brothers and there were a couple of novitiates too, always a good sign). One brother though is 99 and knew Thomas Merton personally, because the founders of this abbey came directly from the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky ca. 1955.

JimR-OCDS said:

The Discalced Carmelites are a contemplative order.

My wife and myself are Secular Discalced Carmelites, OCDS.

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That's true, though distinctly different I have several friends at my parish who are Third Order Carmelites (not OCDS) but nevertheless it's a contemplative charism.