The Millennial Monks of Clear Creek Abbey
e was a fifth century mystic, whose famous Rule underpinned a Catholic
Order which historians credit with saving Western civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire. His Rule, balancing a life of ‘ora et labora' (‘work and prayer'), is a masterpiece of wisdom about the possibilities and realities of human nature.
Fast forward 1500 years to 1999, when three sons of St Benedict of Nursia, monks from the Abbey of Fontgombault in France, traveled to the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma to erect a simple priory there. Ten years later, their growth was such that the priory became Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, part of the Solesmes congregation.
Today, the monks are engaged in building a classical Abbey in the Romanesque style in an agrarian setting near Weathertop Mountain. It is the destination of many young men as they discern their call to the religious life.
The Abbot, Dom Philip Anderson, recently sat down with REGINA Magazine to throw some light on the mystery of why, when so many prominent religious Orders have experienced a precipitous decline, his rural Abbey is experiencing such amazing growth.
H
REGINA | 46