"Benedictine monastery in Oklahoma elevated to abbey"

From Today's Catholic

Our Lady of the Annunciation at Clear Creek, a Benedictine monastery near Hulbert in the Diocese of Tulsa, has been elevated to the status of abbey. The change was announced Feb. 11 by Abbot Antoine Forgeot of the Abbey of Our Lady of Fontgombault in France, the monastery’s motherhouse. Father Philip Anderson, one of the original 13 monks who came from the French abbey to help found Clear Creek in 1999, has been elected abbot. He has served as prior of the monastic community since its foundation. “It’s a moment of perfection, and the moment you become fully what you were meant to be. To become an abbey is to reach a certain point of maturity,” the abbot-elect said. Clear Creek was established as a monastery at the invitation of Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa. In the 10 years since it was established, monasteries nationwide and worldwide have declined in membership, but the Oklahoma monastery has grown from its original 13 monks to its current population of 18 professed monks. Twelve of them are priests and six are brothers. In addition, the community includes eight novices and postulants and seven men who have made their first vows.

Religious Communities and Young Vocations

"A Monastic Kind of Life"
From SLATE
By Harold Fickett
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Catholic Church has always seen the contemplative life as the "Air Force" in its spiritual struggle, as the Rev. David Toups of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commented—a conduit of spiritual power. Though the number of young people entering monasteries, convents, and the priesthood has drastically dropped from the mid-20th century, some new approaches to religious vocations have inspired some young people in America to embrace this idea, replenishing several of the older religious orders and filling new ones. One such community with a young population, nestled in the Ozarks, is a place that could symbolize Catholicism's true hope for renewal in our time. Founded in 1999, the Clear Creek Monastery has grown from 13 to 30 monks who are intent on building a community that will "last for a thousand years." Clear Creek is also part of the "reform of the reform," a rethinking of Vatican II that has led a number of religious orders—such as the Dominican Sisters in Nashville, the Sisters for Life in New York, and Benedict Groeschel's Franciscan Friars of the Renewal—to rediscover their original mission and flourish.

The growth in these orders provides a striking contrast to the continuing decline in Catholic monastic and religious life generally. In 1965, there were twice as many religious priests and brothers as today. There are just one-third as many nuns. According to Sister Mary Bendyna, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the average monk is in his early 70s, the average nun in her mid-70s. The mission of many orders has become simply caring for their aging populations as they sell properties and consolidate with others.

The Vatican II document dealing with monasticism, Perfectae caritatis, counseled both "a constant return to the sources" of the Christian life and "their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time." Issued in October 1965, this re-examination of the religious life came as the cultural revolution of the 1960s began its magical mystery tour. It was received with wild and contradictory enthusiasms by a restive population of monks and nuns. Many of the large Catholic families of the World War II generation sought spiritual favor—or simply status—by giving one of their children to the church. These donated priests, nuns, and monks often wanted to leave or instead sought to accommodate the religious life's demands to their personal ambitions. For a time, the life of Catholic religious orders became about social justice issues, psychological issues, peace studies, interreligious dialogue, the ecology movement—everything and anything, seemingly, except the central proposition: that one can know a loving God and be transformed.

The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles are the most famous example of the combustible combination of the times and the dissatisfaction of many religious. In 1966, humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers led a series of "encounter sessions" with the sisters, urging them to seek personal fulfillment. Within the next several years, the order nearly vanished. In many orders at the time, the vow of chastity was widely ignored.

Russell Hittinger, the Warren professor of Catholic studies at the University of Tulsa, admits that many of those who entered religious life before Vatican II simply did not have a calling. Those who truly have a call to monasticism—or other forms of the religious life—begin by falling in love with the pursuit of holiness, as did the monks of Clear Creek.

The Clear Creek story goes back to the University of Kansas. In the early 1970s, six young men who would become founding monks of Clear Creek were students in the Pearson College Integrated Humanities Program. Literally hundreds of Pearson's students became Catholic converts, inspired by professor John Senior, who conceived of a contemplative monastery close to the Lawrence campus. After he learned of a traditional Benedictine monastery in Fontgombault, France, he sent two young men off on a scouting mission with an instruction: "Bring back an abbot." These American students, and the others who soon followed, went to France thinking they would soon return to establish a monastery, bringing renewal to American Catholicism and society. But the demands of monastic life and obedience soon revealed this to be youthful presumption.

In 1999, a full 25 years after leaving for France, six of the original University of Kansas students, along with seven fellow monks, returned to America to start Clear Creek, establishing the first foundation for men of the Benedictine Congregation of Solesmes in America. On a 1,200-acre tract of land once owned by an infamous moonshiner, the Clear Creek monks use the old Latin rites both for Mass and the daily offices. Indeed, a return to traditional practices is a common element among those religious orders experiencing renewal. Many young nuns, for example, choose to wear a traditional habit even when their older religious sisters choose modest secular fashions.

Scores of families have purchased land nearby to raise their families in the shadow of the monastery, where they often join the monks in their liturgical celebrations. These families tend to be the crunchiest of the Crunchy Cons, into home schooling, the "local foods, local markets" movement, and sustainable farming. This growing community is one of the surest signs of Clear Creek's importance. This follows the classic spiritual pattern: Saints traipse off into the wilderness, and the world eventually follows, unbidden, as with the Cistercians, who turned the swamps and fens of Europe into arable land and saw communities spring up around them.

The emergence of Clear Creek and other growing monastic communities suggests there will always be young people who ask whether their devotion to God should take precedence over their own personal ambitions and even the natural desire for a family. (The A&E special God or the Girl was an insightful documentary about this.) Today's young people, who have grown up in a highly commercialized and manipulated landscape, are particularly eager to connect with a more authentic way of living. Far from being pressured into pursuing religious vocations, they find their families often protest, feeling they are losing their children to a life that's too isolated.

But after the first heady period of romance comes a long and difficult obedience, as every monk or nun eventually recognizes. Fidelity can result in humility, though, which is the deepest source of the beauty to be seen at Clear Creek and other monastic foundations. From its rich liturgical rites to the pastoral details of its life as a working farm, as the monks raise sheep, make furniture, tend their orchard, and care for a huge vegetable garden, Clear Creek is what a monastery is meant to be—a sign of paradise.

Father Anderson says, "We were only a bunch of bums, but by becoming nothing, you can be a part of something great."

Harold Fickett is an associate editor of GodSpy.com and the author of The Living Christ and other books.

Update on the Progress at Clear Creek Monastery

My apologies for not posting this sooner. It's been going around the internet for a while, but when I first saw it, I thought it was the older video about Clear Creek and stopped watching it too soon. Please help support the Monks in this beautiful and worthy endeavor!

"A Monastic Kind of Life"

How Catholic religious communities are trying to attract young people again.

From SLATE

By Harold Fickett

The Catholic Church has always seen the contemplative life as the "Air Force" in its spiritual struggle, as the Rev. David Toups of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commented—a conduit of spiritual power. Though the number of young people entering monasteries, convents, and the priesthood has drastically dropped from the mid-20th century, some new approaches to religious vocations have inspired some young people in America to embrace this idea, replenishing several of the older religious orders and filling new ones. One such community with a young population, nestled in the Ozarks, is a place that could symbolize Catholicism's true hope for renewal in our time. Founded in 1999, the Clear Creek Monastery has grown from 13 to 30 monks who are intent on building a community that will "last for a thousand years." Clear Creek is also part of the "reform of the reform," a rethinking of Vatican II that has led a number of religious orders—such as the Dominican Sisters in Nashville, the Sisters for Life in New York, and Benedict Groeschel's Franciscan Friars of the Renewal—to rediscover their original mission and flourish.

The growth in these orders provides a striking contrast to the continuing decline in Catholic monastic and religious life generally. In 1965, there were twice as many religious priests and brothers as today. There are just one-third as many nuns. According to Sister Mary Bendyna, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the average monk is in his early 70s, the average nun in her mid-70s. The mission of many orders has become simply caring for their aging populations as they sell properties and consolidate with others.

The Vatican II document dealing with monasticism, Perfectae caritatis, counseled both "a constant return to the sources" of the Christian life and "their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time." Issued in October 1965, this re-examination of the religious life came as the cultural revolution of the 1960s began its magical mystery tour. It was received with wild and contradictory enthusiasms by a restive population of monks and nuns. Many of the large Catholic families of the World War II generation sought spiritual favor—or simply status—by giving one of their children to the church. These donated priests, nuns, and monks often wanted to leave or instead sought to accommodate the religious life's demands to their personal ambitions. For a time, the life of Catholic religious orders became about social justice issues, psychological issues, peace studies, interreligious dialogue, the ecology movement—everything and anything, seemingly, except the central proposition: that one can know a loving God and be transformed.

The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles are the most famous example of the combustible combination of the times and the dissatisfaction of many religious. In 1966, humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers led a series of "encounter sessions" with the sisters, urging them to seek personal fulfillment. Within the next several years, the order nearly vanished. In many orders at the time, the vow of chastity was widely ignored.

Russell Hittinger, the Warren professor of Catholic studies at the University of Tulsa, admits that many of those who entered religious life before Vatican II simply did not have a calling. Those who truly have a call to monasticism—or other forms of the religious life—begin by falling in love with the pursuit of holiness, as did the monks of Clear Creek.

The Clear Creek story goes back to the University of Kansas. In the early 1970s, six young men who would become founding monks of Clear Creek were students in the Pearson College Integrated Humanities Program. Literally hundreds of Pearson's students became Catholic converts, inspired by professor John Senior, who conceived of a contemplative monastery close to the Lawrence campus. After he learned of a traditional Benedictine monastery in Fontgombault, France, he sent two young men off on a scouting mission with an instruction: "Bring back an abbot." These American students, and the others who soon followed, went to France thinking they would soon return to establish a monastery, bringing renewal to American Catholicism and society. But the demands of monastic life and obedience soon revealed this to be youthful presumption.

In 1999, a full 25 years after leaving for France, six of the original University of Kansas students, along with seven fellow monks, returned to America to start Clear Creek, establishing the first foundation for men of the Benedictine Congregation of Solesmes in America. On a 1,200-acre tract of land once owned by an infamous moonshiner, the Clear Creek monks use the old Latin rites both for Mass and the daily offices. Indeed, a return to traditional practices is a common element among those religious orders experiencing renewal. Many young nuns, for example, choose to wear a traditional habit even when their older religious sisters choose modest secular fashions.

Scores of families have purchased land nearby to raise their families in the shadow of the monastery, where they often join the monks in their liturgical celebrations. These families tend to be the crunchiest of the Crunchy Cons, into home schooling, the "local foods, local markets" movement, and sustainable farming. This growing community is one of the surest signs of Clear Creek's importance. This follows the classic spiritual pattern: Saints traipse off into the wilderness, and the world eventually follows, unbidden, as with the Cistercians, who turned the swamps and fens of Europe into arable land and saw communities spring up around them.

The emergence of Clear Creek and other growing monastic communities suggests there will always be young people who ask whether their devotion to God should take precedence over their own personal ambitions and even the natural desire for a family. (The A&E special God or the Girl was an insightful documentary about this.) Today's young people, who have grown up in a highly commercialized and manipulated landscape, are particularly eager to connect with a more authentic way of living. Far from being pressured into pursuing religious vocations, they find their families often protest, feeling they are losing their children to a life that's too isolated.

But after the first heady period of romance comes a long and difficult obedience, as every monk or nun eventually recognizes. Fidelity can result in humility, though, which is the deepest source of the beauty to be seen at Clear Creek and other monastic foundations. From its rich liturgical rites to the pastoral details of its life as a working farm, as the monks raise sheep, make furniture, tend their orchard, and care for a huge vegetable garden, Clear Creek is what a monastery is meant to be—a sign of paradise.

Father Anderson says, "We were only a bunch of bums, but by becoming nothing, you can be a part of something great."

"A Monastery to Last 1,000 Years"

Traditional Benedictines Flourish in Eastern Oklahoma

From Zenit
By Jason Adkins

HULBERT, Oklahoma, JUNE 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- It’s been said that when the revolution comes, you won’t read about it in the newspapers.

Indeed, when the history of this part of the world is written, it may point to the recent establishment of a monastery amid the rolling hills and lakes of eastern Oklahoma as an event of momentous consequence for fostering a renaissance of Christian culture.

On my return drive to Minnesota after living for a year in Texas, I chose to spend some time at Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek monastery where an order of Benedictine monks, known as the “Clear Creek monks,” is attempting to rebuild monastic life and Christian culture in America from the ground up -- literally.

There, along with sharing in the common life of the monks, I spoke to the monastery’s prior, Father Philip Anderson, about the history and mission of this new monastic community.

Foundation

Father Anderson told me the Clear Creek monks’ story begins at the University of Kansas. There, a Great Books program, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, gave students the opportunity to encounter the culture and ideas of Western Civilization.

This program run by John Senior was not a relativistic one -- allowing students to pick and choose among various philosophical viewpoints -- as is common among programs of that type.

Rather, the success of the program resulted from Senior’s willingness to propose answers to the deepest questions, and point to Catholicism as the source of the many fruits the West has produced. Senior also stressed the importance of the Latin language as the medium through which this common civilization and its achievements were bound together.

According to Father Anderson, the program became wildly popular and produced not a few converts to the faith; then some prominent university donors protested and the program was shut down. But Senior spawned a small movement among students that did not end with the closure of the great books program.

When some students, one of whom was Father Anderson, approached Senior about how to rebuild a civilization being lost to modern technocratic society, Senior suggested the students go find some monks in Europe -- for there were few, if any, left in America -- who were living a traditional monastic life.

The journey eventually led Father Anderson and his companions to the medieval French Benedictine Abbey of Fontgombault, where they were welcomed and received formation in the religious life according to the Rule of St. Benedict. All along, these monks intended to return to America to establish a new monastery on their native soil.

The wait would last almost 25 years, concluding in 1998 when Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa invited the monks from Fontgombault to form a foundation community of that abbey in his diocese.

According to Father Anderson, building the monastery in eastern Oklahoma was the result of a fortuitous combination of an enthusiastic bishop, a Midwestern location -- close to many of Senior’s original students who could contribute to the foundation -- and the right piece of property. Father Anderson described the rocky property as “perfect for the monastic life.”

Since 1999, the original American monks, along with some Canadian and French brethren, have lived at the Clear Creek site near Hulbert, Oklahoma, where they have slowly -- but quickly, in monastic terms -- been building a monastery.

Marking the Hours

The Clear Creek monastic life centers on liturgical prayer, particularly the Liturgy of the Hours, which the monks chant in Latin eight times a day. The monk’s life, says Father Anderson, is a life of prayer: “God exists, and we have been created for him.” Praying the hours as a community allows the monks to give constant praise and thanks to the living, creator God.

The monks use the traditional -- or extraordinary -- form of the Roman liturgy. Father Anderson told me that the monks believe the traditional liturgy is more suited to the type of traditional, contemplative monastic life they wish to live. It is a symbol and embodiment, he said, of the type of cultural and religious life the monks desire to preserve.

I asked Father Anderson how the monks financially support their quiet life of prayer and praise. He said that unlike some monastic orders that make only one product and often have to build an adjoining factory to mass produce their goods, the Clear Creek monks engage in a variety of tasks and trades. The monks earn their living by raising sheep, running an orchard and vegetable farm, and making cheese, clothes and furniture.

Because the monks can perform many of the tasks needed to run the monastery, operational costs are pretty low. But building a Romanesque church for their monastery, which will be able to last a thousand years, is another matter.

"Per omnia saecula saeculorum"

The Clear Creek monks are raising money to build their church -- one they hope remains a landmark on the Oklahoma landscape for ages to come.

The monks believe their new church will be a sign of contradiction in a consumerist culture where everything is transient or can be thrown away when no longer useful. Change seems to be the only constant. The destabilizing elements in our culture are “poison for the soul” Father Anderson said.

The monks believe that people will always need faith and a culture that derives from that faith. According to the monks’ informational pamphlet, people “need a place in which they can reconnect with creation and with the silent center of their own being where God awaits them. The monastery is such a place.”

“The church will represent something permanent,” Father Anderson continued. “Architecture can have a spiritual effect on people. We hope to build something beautiful that will give value to this region and the people can be proud of.”

Father Anderson hopes construction on the church can begin sometime in 2009.

I asked Father Anderson whether the Clear Creek monks desired to rebuild civilization in America. He laughed and said that the Benedictines had “built Europe without even trying.”

“We focus on prayer,” he said. “We can only see the effects of our life indirectly like we see the ripples from a drop in a pond.”

According to Father Anderson, the work of the monks operates like concentric circles. Everything is centered on the interior life. But that has an effect on everything else, particularly the work of the monks. And the monastic way of life fosters a more contemplative way of being -- a life that explores the important questions and expresses itself through art, music festivals and literature -- that is, true culture.

Already, people have moved close to the monastery to share in the life of the monks, just like in the Middle Ages. Many laity and families show up at all times of day for Mass and to pray the hours with the monks.

Father Anderson said the diocese hopes to erect a parish nearby to assist in serving the spiritual needs of these many newcomers.

The Clear Creek monks already number 30, with three or four more expected to enter this year. The new residence they built is already filled to capacity and new monks will have to be housed in sheds adjacent to the monastery.

Father Anderson believes that the Clear Creek monks’ focus on the traditional monastic activities of prayer and manual labor, rather than following the path that many monasteries took by limiting their liturgical life in order to focus on running schools, is the secret of the monks’ vocational success.

As he said, “the life of a monk, hands folded in prayer, is a sermon without words.”

Hopefully, the story of the Clear Creek monks will inspire not only a renaissance in monastic life in the United States, but inspire teachers to be like John Senior and educate their students in truth, beauty, and goodness -- even at great professional cost.

With more teachers like Senior, and monks like those at Clear Creek, the possibility of the renewal of authentic monastic and Christian cultural life in America looks brighter.

'Pax huic domui'

From TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS

Peace be to this house
By JOSH NEWTON

Hundreds from around the world gathered Saturday for the blessing of Clear Creek Monastery’s residence building.

LOST CITY – The solemn blessing of the new residence building at Our Lady of the Clear Creek Monastery brought hundreds from around the world to the architectural wonder Saturday.

Over 400 people attended a Saturday morning Mass, according to Father Phillip Anderson, prior at Clear Creek Monastery.
“Seven hundred said they were coming [to the dedication],” said Anderson. “People from France, Canada, all over America, especially the Midwest.”

But he said recent grounding of hundreds of American Airline flights may have kept a number of people from visiting.

“A lot of these people contributed their time, their help, their money,” he said.
Crowds gathered in the courtyard of the guesthouse to watch as His Excellence Edward J. Slattery, bishop of Tulsa, offered his blessing on the buildings.

“Adjutórium nostrum in nómine Dómini. Qui fecit caelum et terram. Pax huic domui. Et omnibus habitantibus in ea,” said the bishop, which is Latin for, “Our help is in the name of the Lord. Who made heaven and earth. Peace be to this house. And to all its inhabitants.”

Slattery asked God to sanctify and bless the monastery’s residence building, all who dwell therein, and everything else inside.

“At our entrance, therefore, deign to bless and sanctify this house as thou didst deign to bless the house of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and may the angels of thy light dwell within the walls of this house; and may they protect it and those who dwell therein. Through Christ our Lord. Amen,” said Flattery.

As the bishop blessed the residence, the Benedictine monks living at the monastery sang the antiphon “Vidi aquam” and Psalm 117.

Anderson said this open house actually begins an enclosure for the 30 monks at the monastery. He invited guests to tour the facilities, including the crypt, gatehouse and courtyards. A luncheon was also served to hundreds who lined up outside a large tent.

In a booklet produced by the monastery, the monks thank God, and all those who, through material aid or the “invisible help of their prayers and sacrifices,” made the building rise from the ground “to the glory of Christ and our lady [Mary].”

“Nor can we forget the untiring physical labor that has gone into the bricks and mortar that carry so much spiritual weight. We thank, in particular: His Excellency Bishop Edward J. Slattery; our Father Abbot Dom Antonine Forgeot; and the many unnamed construction workers who accomplished this beautiful work.”

The monastery resulted from an idea produced by a group of students from the University of Kansas some 30 years ago, who wanted more than time spent at church. Anderson was a member of those students who lived about 25 years at the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame in France. Monks moved into the Clear Creek Monastery in 1999, living in other buildings while the residence quarters were under construction.

The next step, said Anderson, will be completion of a large church that will be constructed above their temporary crypt.

“Construction may take us two to three years,” said Anderson.

For now, the monks look to begin a meaningful, effective prayer time.

“This will be a space of freedom for us,” said Anderson. “We will pray more. Monks will be separate, but distinct.”

"Clear Creek Monastery expanding"

Monastery “speaks” to those who live there

From the Muscogee Pheonix

By Liz McMahan

Photos by Jennifer Lyles

LOST CITY — The simple beauty of cross-shaped blooms on the dogwood trees along the road leading into the Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery belie the enormity of the priory ahead.

The four-story buff brick-and-concrete building, with its shiny copper roof and trim will be dedicated and blessed by the bishop in ceremonies today.

The monastery sits on 1,000 acres in the rugged Cherokee County hills, where moonshine makers used to operate their stills on Clear Creek.

The entrance to the building looks out over an open meadow that stretches to the foot of a rock- and tree-covered hillside. Deer grazing there seem oblivious to the imposing building, the noise of construction equipment and the movement of the workers.

The building is harder to ignore for the people who live here — 30 monks of the Benedictine Order.

The European-style monastery is a dream that started more than 30 years ago among a group of University of Kansas students who were looking for something more meaningful than just going to church, said Father Phillip Anderson, the monastery’s prior. A prior is the person who governs a small monastery.

Anderson was among those Kansas students searching for more meaning in life in the turbulent college campus revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.

“We were looking for values, and we found something,” he said. “This really speaks to us.”
Anderson was among a group of KU students who lived for 24 years at the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame in France — a monastery built in 1091.

In 1999, they returned to the United States — to the Clear Creek property and lived in buildings on the grounds until they recently moved into their new quarters.

The larger of the new buildings at the monastery is a residence building. It includes rooms, or cells, for each monk, quarters for visiting males, a dining hall and a study room.

The smaller, front building is called the gatehouse or welcome center.

There also is what appears to be a very large concrete pad in back of the welcome center and to the side of the residence building.

It actually is the roof over a crypt, the monks’ temporary sanctuary, and the basement to a huge church to be built there. The clusters of iron rods sticking out of the concrete are where the church columns will be, Anderson said.

Eventually, two other buildings will be constructed to surround a courtyard in back of the residence hall, he said.

Cost of the two completed buildings is about $12 million, according to an article by the Catholic News Service. Funding comes from financing, private donations and the support of the monks' motherhouse in France, CNS reported.

It will take several years to complete the project, Anderson said. However, the history of monasteries has been that some took as long as 1,000 years to build. They were constructed by hand.

This is a different time, he said. This monastery is being built by Manhattan Construction.

Daughter Enters Carmel

As part of my daily routine I scan the internet for vocations articles and stories. This morning I came acros the post below. It took some doing to find the original source: the St. Thomas Aquinas College Alumni Website. In the process I have come to find out that at least 8 of the Benedictine Monks at Clear Creek Monastery in Tulsa, OK are graduates of St. Thomas Aquinas, and that at least two recent graduates have entered the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Valparaiso, Nebraska. Remarkable. Not only that but the school has had at least 25 graduates in the last 25 years go on to ordination to the Holy Priesthood.

What I post below is a letter from a graduates parents to her felow alumni about Kelly's entrance day. For those discerning cloistered religious life this may be a helpful read, for everyone else, I hope you will find it as fascinating as I did.

From the Thomas Aquinas College Alumni Internet Site:


On Ascension Thursday, May 17th, Kelly, Jeff and I and her aunt and uncle (Godparents) attended the Solemn High Tridentine Mass at the beautiful chapel of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph Monastery in Valparaiso. The monastery is about 25 minutes north of Lincoln, Nebraska. During the Homily, the Monsignor gave special mention of Kelly’s forthcoming entrance. After Mass, 2 mothers of young postulant/novices who introduced themselves and offered to help us with the entrance process greeted us. These angel women were such a blessing! They gently guided us through the whole entrance and gave us much-needed pointers about where to stand and such for the best views. We were also told that we had only about 10 minutes to give hugs and say goodbye. (A short time, but I think it’s better than a prolonged goodbye—sort of analogous to ripping a band-aid off quickly to lessen the pain). We took a few final pictures, then went into the “Turn Room” to say goodbye. There were many hugs, kisses and tears from us and such a wide smile on Kelly’s face—she had been waiting so long for this day!

After our goodbyes, Monsignor rang the bell at the Turn and told the sister at the Turn that Kelly was ready. Then he and the Deacon gave Kelly a blessing and the door to the speakroom and cloister entrance was unlocked. Kelly went through the open door and waited at the closed Cloister door to enter. The first door was left open so that we could see Kelly being greeted by Mother Teresa. We were told that Mother Teresa, Mother Agnes (prioress of the novices) and the other 19 nuns would be lined up on both sides behind the door with lighted candles to greet Kelly. After what seemed like a very long time, Mother Teresa opened the door and Kelly knelt down and kissed the ground and the cross that Mother Teresa was holding. Kelly then walked through the door and into her new life.

She then went with the nuns into the Choir (the partitioned area on the right side of the Altar in the Chapel) and knelt at the Communion rail, while the nuns took their places in their Choir stalls. There are 10 stalls on the right and 10 stalls on the left side of the Choir and two stalls at the back—one for Mother Teresa and one for Mother Agnes. Since the Carmel is bursting at the seams, Kelly has the last stall in the Choir. We knelt at the Chapel Communion rail so as to get a good view of Kelly and the nuns in the Choir. Kelly then recited her Consecration and after that the nuns sang a beautiful hymn in Latin (or it could have been the Magnificat that they sang, I’m a bit fuzzy on those details right now, there was so much to absorb and we were very emotional). We saw Kelly cry during the recitation of the Consecration. When we asked her about it later, she said that they were tears of joy because she was so happy to be finally entering.

Then we went back to the speakroom to meet with all the nuns while Kelly got dressed in her postulant habit that the nuns had made for her. (She sent her measurements to them a few months back.) We were greeted by 21 of the happiest and most joy-filled women we have ever met. Some were very outspoken, some shy, but they all had on big smiles! There are currently 22 nuns (including Kelly), 10 of whom are either postulants or novices. Kelly is the “baby” right now, but not for long, because 2 more are set to enter in the next couple of months. A Carmel is generally limited to 21 nuns, so we think pretty soon a group of them will branch off and start a new Carmel somewhere else.

There was much good-natured ribbing, joking and laughing among the nuns and with us and that helped so much to dispel our tearfulness. I can’t remember all of their names, but I believe it is Sister Bridget who entered 6 months ago and graduated from TAC 2 years ago. She wanted to hear all about how the Chapel building at TAC was going and we promised we would send pictures of it when it was completed. One of the young Sisters came to the Carmel all the way from Australia, several are from small families like Kelly (2 are only children), and one even is a convert and her family is still non-Catholic. She said that the most her sister could say to her on the day of her entrance was “I’m sad that you are joining, but I’m happy for you that you are happy.” So, as hard as it was for us to let go of Kelly, we appreciate that for others it can be even more difficult, especially if they don’t understand or appreciate the cloistered contemplative vocation. Another older nun was so excited that we were from California, since that was where she was from. She was very quick-witted and many of the jokes and banter came from her (especially since she is from Southern California and Mother Agnes is from Northern California—the rumor that Northern California feels a rivalry toward and superior to Southern California is apparently alive and well). Sister Amy and Sister Juana Teresa were the two daughters of the mothers who came to the Mass to help us through the entrance process. We told them how friendly and helpful their mothers were to us.

After about 15 minutes our Kelly came in all dressed in her postulant habit. Her veil wasn’t tied tightly enough, so it kept trying to come off, but she looked so very beautiful and she was absolutely glowing! We honestly had never seen her as happy as she was at that moment. We visited with all of them for a few minutes longer, then they retreated for the Divine Office and we had Kelly to ourselves for a nice, long 1.5 hour visit before she joined her Sisters for lunch and picture taking (We had sent our camera through the Turn along with Kelly’s suitcase just before her entrance so that we could have a picture of Kelly in the Cloister.)

Lunch, which if you are curious, Kelly told us was veggie burgers, fruit, chips, punch and chocolate bars for dessert (Didn’t think nuns ate like that? Well, neither did we!). It was probably a bit different from their usual fare since they were celebrating a Feast Day and Kelly’s entrance. Then a nap for Kelly before we were due back for a final visit at 3p.m. By the time of our afternoon visit, everyone was exhausted and emotionally drained. Kelly told us that she actually slept after lunch, probably due to the fact that she had only been averaging 2 hours of sleep per night since graduation in an effort to get everything ready before her entrance. But she was still so very happy and grateful and full of love. She asked us to be sure to email you all and let you know that she sends you her love and prayers. Trust me on the prayers part—the prayer list she went in with was pages long!

It’s been very emotional for us since she entered—I’ve been used to talking to her every day and for the first few days I drove Jeff nuts because I kept looking at my cell phone—willing it to ring, I guess. We got our May letter in to her already, written 4 days after her entrance.

In closing, know that you have a serious prayer warrior on your side—she’s praying for each of you every day and probably all of the Sisters are as well. We know that they are praying for us and they have assured us that God is showering us with His graces. We’ve been feeling them, too; we both feel that we are enveloped in His sheltering arms as we go through this period of adjustment to a life without having our amazing, beautiful and loving daughter close by our sides.
In approximately 6-8 months, January or so, Kelly will have her Clothing. During Clothing she will receive the novice habit and be given her new name. As a postulant, she is called Sister Kelly, but that will change when she becomes a novice. We think that they take her suggestions for her new name into consideration, but Mother Teresa and Mother Agnes make the final decision. We’ll write to you all about it since we will be traveling to the Monastery for her Clothing.

Washington Times Article about the Benedictine Monks at Clear Creek Monastery

From The Washington Times
by Michael Farr
Article published Apr 4, 2008

Former students set up a retreat

Hulbert is like a lot of small towns in Oklahoma — with one big difference: The tiny hamlet of about 550 is home to a monastery of Gregorian-chanting, cheese-making, Benedictine monks. Direct from France, no less.

”The vocation, the whole way of life — it has a lot of hidden resources,” said the Rev. Philip Anderson, prior of Our Lady of the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek in Hulbert. “You discover beauties that you never saw in the natural world.”

Father Anderson established Clear Creek Monastery in 1999 with 12 other monks from Fontgombault Monastery in France, including some of his former classmates from the University of Kansas. The number of monks at the monastery has more than doubled since then.
His and his classmates' sudden move from university life in Kansas to monastic life in France was sparked by a visit to Fontgombault Monastery through a humanities program at the university. The monastery so intrigued them that some time later they decided to return to stay.

“When you're 20 years old, you're crazy,” said Father Anderson, who was at Fontgombault for more than two decades. “My generation was looking for either heaven or hell. We didn't want to be middle-class businessmen.”

And that they aren't. But the monks do describe what they do as a religious profession. Like modern workers, they have their daily routines — but their routines include attending multiple Masses per day, formal and silent prayer, chants and several hours of manual labor.

This is a far cry from the pace of the modern world, but according to Father Anderson, the monastery has its own kind of excitement.

“The beauty of monastic life is we have balance,” he said. “It's a very big adventure here.”

In accordance with their Benedictine tradition, the monks strive to be self-sufficient. The monastery has especially become known for its cheese.

“About the best cheese I've ever had,” said Ted King, spokesman for Clear Creek Monastery.

"Inside Clear Creek Monastery"

"Tulsa World" has launched a website with articles and a slideshow about the Benedictine Monks at Clear Creek Monastery in Tulsa Oklahoma. The photographs are beautiful, the slideshow is excellent and the articles (posted below) are very good. Enjoy.

Faith rules: Inside the Clear Creek Monastery

by: MICHAEL OVERALL Tulsa World
3/23/2008 12:00 AM

Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series about the Clear Creek Monastery. In Monday’s World, part two: “Keeping the faith.”

Some people say the world is slipping into a new Dark Age. Some might say the world has been in the Dark Ages for quite a while already.

In morality, in architecture, in craftsmanship and art and literature, the 21st century is a long way from the Renaissance, and many self-described “traditionalists” would suggest that it’s a long way down.

Less than a generation after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, a growing number of Catholics want to restore Latin as a regular part of worship. But for them, it’s not just about language. It’s about reversing the decline of civilization itself.

In their eyes, the loss of Latin represented a much wider crisis in the modern world — a rejection of tradition, a defiance of history, the severing of cultural roots and a loss of faith in general. In bringing back old-fashioned prayers, they hope to bring back old-fashioned values, too.

In this worldwide effort to “reform the reforms,” Tulsa has stepped to the forefront because of a place called Clear Creek.

For three days in February, the Tulsa World gained unprecedented access to the only contemplative Benedictine monastery in the United States. And it offered a glimpse of what life might be like in a world where . . .faith rules.


The bell ringer comes outside an hour before dawn.

No light escapes from the open door. No stars peek through the cloud cover. The remote landscape offers nothing but darkness for miles in every direction.

Wearing a long black robe with a hood pulled over his head, this solitary monk seems almost invisible, silhouetted like a shadow against the crypt’s bare concrete wall.

In the strict silence of the monastery — so quiet that the monks can lie awake and meditate to the sound of their own heartbeats — his footsteps seem subversively loud, crunching on the gravel path. A few steps from the door, he reaches out with both hands to pull on a rope that dangles down the side of the crypt.

The bell tears through the cold morning air, echoing for miles across the wooded hills that surround the north side of Fort Gibson Lake. Inside, the monks descend into the crypt in a long, solemn line, black robes brushing lightly across the concrete floor.

Heads bowed, hands clasped together, they can see their own breath in this chilly, underground chamber, lit only by a few dim bulbs and candles flickering from the altar.

“Gloria Patri,” the monks begin to sing, “et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto . . . .”

Outside, unseen by the monks, a pair of headlights appears on the crest of a distant hill. Then a second. Then a third.

Snaking along the dirt road and across a small, stone bridge, the outsiders pull into an unpaved parking lot, tires crunching on the gravel louder than any monk’s footsteps.

A couple climb out of the first SUV. Three kids and their mother emerge from a minivan. A second SUV unloads half a dozen passengers, men, women and children.

With the first subtle hint of dawn shading the sky, they all file through a side entrance to the crypt, the heavy door — its hinges squeaking — slamming shut behind them.

The Benedictines came to Oklahoma looking for solitude; to escape from the rest of the world, protected by muddy roads and low-water bridges and the sheer distance from any main highway.

Now the world is coming to the Monastery of Clear Creek.


‘Set a standard’


The iron comes out of the fire glowing red, sending sparks across the cluttered workshop as George Carpenter pounds it with a mallet.

Starting out as a thin strip, the metal twists and folds into the shape of a door hinge for one of the new monastery’s grand entrances.

In a more philosophical mood, Carpenter might reflect on the way religion shapes a man’s life, bending and twisting, folding and turning. A younger man, with a soul that is still red-hot and malleable, might question his faith.

Does he really believe in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection? Or is it like believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? Is he Catholic because he really embraces the church? Or just because his parents are Catholic?

“I was looking for some kind of spiritual connection,” Carpenter remembers now that he’s approaching middle age. “Something solid. Firm. Something permanent, that didn’t need reformed.”

Part of the first generation born after the Second Vatican Council, Carpenter grew up hearing Mass in English instead of Latin. Since the council in the 1960s, most Catholic services have been in a country’s common language.

Whether the changes sparked a crisis or simply coincided with it, that’s a matter of debate. But church attendance has dropped, seminaries face shortages of new priests and millions of Catholics openly dissent from church teachings.

Now a growing movement is trying to “reform the reforms,” bringing back Latin in hopes of bringing back faithfulness in general. The pope himself recently changed church rules to encourage a broader use of Latin in services.

For Carpenter, “the renewal,” as the movement calls itself, began several years ago when his father-in-law showed him a video of an old Latin service.

“I was drawn to it immediately,” he says, pausing for a moment to pound another red-hot piece of iron.

“It was mysterious. Beautiful. Timeless.”

Using an anvil and his own linebacker-size muscles, Carpenter bends the metal into an “S” shape, forming another part of the door hinge. Blacksmiths used the same techniques in the sixth century, when St. Benedict was alive.

“When the metal is hot,” Carpenter explains, “it’s not much different from shaping clay. As it cools, the shape becomes firm.”

Growing older, Carpenter left his doubts behind and took his family to a traditional Latin parish in Texas. But in shaping his children’s lives, faith had to compete with modern culture.

He worried about the endless pursuit of consumer goods and what he calls “the trivialization of promiscuity,” even in schools and on “family” television shows.

“We wanted to raise our kids in a truly Christian culture,” he says, “a place where the church is the backdrop for everyday life.”

Four years ago, they moved to a small farm just up the road from Clear Creek, where Carpenter works part time in the metal shop.

Others have come from the West Coast and the East, the Midwest and the Deep South. From all across the country, dozens of families have moved to this obscure corner of rural Oklahoma to live within reach of the monastery bell. Like the monks, they want to “be ye separate” from the world.

“The monks set a standard for us to look up to,” Carpenter says, throwing more coals on the fire. “We’re the foot soldiers of the church, so to speak, but they’re the special forces. They’re the Marines.”

In the fight to reclaim traditions, Clear Creek is the tip of the spear.


‘Our cultural home’


The daily Mass ends just after 11 a.m., with each monk pausing in front of the altar and falling to his knees, bowing with his forehead nearly touching the floor.

Two-by-two, they stand up and march out of the crypt in perfect rhythm, left-right-left. Hands clasped, heads bowed, they don’t whisper a word. They don’t even glance at the people in the pews.

Careful not to make the slightest noise, Carpenter and the other laymen wait patiently while the monks pass. The last one out the door hits a light switch, leaving everybody else in the dark.

They must remember — this Mass was not for them.

Catholics usually genuflect before leaving a sanctuary. But here, most people follow the monks’ example — bowing on both knees.

The younger girls struggle with the maneuver, awkward in skirts that reach to their ankles, lacy scarves slipping off their heads. But their mothers make it look effortless.

In the vestibule, laypeople go out the door on the right, to the parking lot. No matter how close they live, no matter how often they come here to worship, they’re still outsiders. The monks never asked anybody to come and now they have to leave.

It takes special permission to go through the door on the left, then up a flight of stairs to a loggia. An arched opening leads to the inner cloister itself, a courtyard that would be strictly off limits if the prior himself was not serving as a personal escort.

Eventually, as construction continues, the monastery buildings will form a giant square with this courtyard hidden in the middle. But for now, the church remains nothing but a crypt, a kind of basement foundation where the monks gather to pray.

Only one side of the square has been finished — a four-story residential hall big enough for 60 monks to occupy.

“It’s an ambitious undertaking,” admits Father Philip Anderson, the prior of Clear Creek and one of the original 13 monks who opened the monastery in 1999. “If I was doing it over again, I’m not sure we would be so ambitious.”

The fundraising and the construction can become a distraction from what the monks came here to do — to pray. And to pray, specifically, the old Latin liturgy.

“You can see that civilization is in a crisis,” Anderson says, his robe fluttering in the breeze as he walks in the courtyard.

“This crisis has, in some ways, infected even the church. There’s a lack of discipline, a lack of clear moral principles.”

Society keeps trying to reinvent itself — political revolutions, sexual revolutions, technological revolutions.

“But every attempt at a solution only makes the crisis grow deeper,” Anderson says, his voice staying meditatively calm. “We’ve had all kinds of solutions — except tradition. We’ve explored many different paths — except turning back, returning to our cultural home, returning to the ancient faith.”

At Clear Creek, the ancient traditions aren’t history. They’re here. Now. And the monks are determined to keep them for the future.

Keeping the faith (part II)
Editor’s note: Tulsa World Staff Writer Michael Overall was allowed unprecedented access behind the walls of the Clear Creek Monastery. Here is part two of a two-part series about the monastery.

by: MICHAEL OVERALL
Tulsa World

For monks, prayer is path to a brighter future

No one sits down. No one talks. Heads bowed, hands clasped together, the monks wait.

The prior stands just inside the door with a pitcher of water, an empty bowl and a clean white towel. In the sixth century, St. Benedict insisted that his followers wash a visitor’s feet before dinner, but traditions evolve — now the prior washes a visitor’s hands.

Guests eat in the middle of the room, separate from the monks, who surround two long, wooden tables against opposite walls.

“In nomine Patris,” they pray, as always, in Latin before finally sitting down, “et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. . . .”

The food comes with perfect etiquette, dishes served from the left, taken away from the right, and at a brisk pace.

Slurp quickly or the soup will disappear half finished to make room for fresh beets and coleslaw.

The monks resist earthly temptations — but when they eat, they flirt with extravagance.

Tonight, a hearty portion of salmon comes with a creamy tomato sauce, complemented by generous pours of cabmerlot wine.

The third course includes buttered noodles that look bland but taste decadent, with espresso for dessert.

When not needed, the servers stand at attention near the kitchen door, white aprons covering their black robes, ready to swoop down on the slightest crumb that might fall.

Benedictines don’t take a vow of silence. In fact, most Benedictines work at schools or hospitals, talking as much as anybody else.

Clear Creek is the only contemplative Benedictine monastery in the United States.

Nestled on the north end of Fort Gibson Lake near Hulbert, the monastery began operating in 1999.

Even here, a monk might clear his throat to ask for more wine, or whisper a couple of words if necessary. But living a contemplative life includes speaking as little as possible, lest you be distracted from always thinking about God.

Dinner would pass as quietly as the rest of the day if not for the cantor, sitting alone at a small table in the corner with a microphone and a book of saints.

“The sword cut deep into the martyr’s head,” he reads, describing the death of St. Boniface, a Benedictine missionary who brought Christianity to Germany in the eighth century. “And blood spurted forth.”

Every meal comes with a history lesson, and after a few days, a general theme emerges.

As Western civilization slid into the Dark Ages, monasteries became repositories of culture. Indeed, many scholars suggest that the Dark Ages weren’t dark at all, considering the art, literature and philosophy that flourished around the Benedictines, the Augustinians and the Carthusians.

The Renaissance would’ve been impossible without monks, and now some people see the need for another Renaissance.

In fashion, architecture, art and literature — and especially in public morals — hardly anything about 2008 looks like 1908, much less 1608.

And to the monks at Clear Creek, 2008 looks decidedly inferior.

Monasteries have saved civilization before, and monasteries might do it again.


‘JUST BEING FAITHFUL’


Silence has a way of amplifying noise. The drip of a faucet, the click of a light switch, the breeze tapping against the window. Everything draws attention to itself.

A guest will send footsteps echoing down the long corridors of the residential hall. But somehow, Father Mark Bachmann’s knocking on the door comes as a complete surprise.

“Being quiet,” he explains, “becomes a habit for us, like breathing.”

A guest’s private room measures less than 10 feet by 10, but the tall ceiling makes it seem reasonably spacious. A bed, not much bigger than an army cot, sits against the wall, with a small desk and chair beneath the window.

A separate room includes a sink and shower, but the toilets are down the hall. Each monk lives in a room, called a cell, just like this.

“Except for the sink and shower,” Bachmann says, taking a seat on the room’s footlocker. “We thought our guests might appreciate the privacy, but it’s a luxury we can do without.”

Ordinarily, Bachmann would study Scripture or read devotional texts during this free time between dinner and evening prayers. But the prior has given him permission to visit the guest area, divided from the monks’ quarters by a locked door at the end of the corridor.

Taking vows more than 24 years ago, he’s one of the older monks here. Several are recent college graduates, but the prior hesitates to let the younger ones talk to outsiders.

“It’s the way parents are always more protective of children the younger they are,” Bachmann says. “They need to mature in their vows, grow stronger in their discipline.”

Once or twice a year, family members can come to the monastery to ask for “parlor time” — maybe 30 or 45 minutes in a visiting room downstairs. The prior rarely grants permission for a monk to leave the monastery grounds, which stretch for a thousand acres across Cherokee County.

“The death of a parent, for example,” Bachmann says.

Then a monk might ask to go home for a couple of days.

“What if we get homesick?

Of course, that will happen occasionally,” he says.

“Then that is something we can offer up to God as a sacrifice.”

The separation is usually harder for the families — especially considering that many of the monks are converts, and just being Catholic seemed controversial enough.

“In time, most parents come to be proud of a son for taking vows,” Bachmann says. “They come to understand that we are just being faithful to what God has called us to do.”

The monks understand the high hopes that traditional Catholics are placing on them — that the use of Latin will spread from Clear Creek and reinvigorate the faith as a whole.

Already, Gregorian chant can be heard in more and more parishes across the Tulsa diocese, where ordinary church choirs have learned Gregorian chant from the monks.

And although most of the Sunday Mass is still in English at Tulsa’s Holy Family Cathedral, the congregation slips into Latin for some prayers.

“If it is God’s will for Latin to regain prominence in the church,” Bachmann says, “then it will happen.”

But that’s not what the monks are trying to do. They believe in the power of prayer to change the world — and that’s the only kind of prayer they are trying to make.

“We’ve heard the Lord calling us to this life of prayer,” Bachmann says. “Just as Peter and John and the other Apostles heard the Lord say, ‘Come, follow me.’ They were just being obedient. They didn’t set out to change the world.”

But change it they did.


‘INTO THE FUTURE’


Sunday morning, the monastery bell echoes across the countryside to announce that High Mass will begin in 10 minutes. But the parking lot already looks full.

Inside the crypt, the reverent silence gives way to a murmuring crowd. Babies cry.

Toddlers squirm. Teenagers pass secrets between themselves.

As the monks come down the aisle, sunlight streams through the windows above the altar and bright votive candles cast a warm glow across the pews.

On most Sundays, latecomers might have to stand in the back.

But the flu has been going around, leaving a few empty seats.

George Carpenter, the blacksmith, arrives with only one son, while his wife and six other children — plus one more on the way — have stayed home.

Around here, that’s not a particularly large family. Some parents count children into double digits.

“If you understand that a child is the greatest blessing that God can give you,” Carpenter says, “well, why would you do anything to keep God from blessing you?”

Last year, Carpenter took an informal census of the Clear Creek community — counting 35 families with a total of 145 people, including 96 children.

There have been several pregnancies since then.

Realistically, most of these children won’t stay in Clear Creek after they grow up.

They’ll go off to college, then find jobs and move to big cities. But their parents expect them to stay devoutly Catholic wherever they go.

“They’ll raise children of their own in the faith,” Carpenter says. “And those children will raise children, and those children. . . .”

After a couple of generations, 145 people can multiply into several hundreds, then a few thousand. In five or six generations, the descendants of Clear Creek might amount to a tribe of their own, taking conservative values and traditional morals with them.

“That’s the way the faith reaches into the future,” Carpenter says. “That’s how traditions survive.”

That’s how the world is changed.

Article on the Benedictine Monks of Clear Creek

Hat tip to Fr. Z at WDTPRS for posting this article from Tulsa World.

A Vision Appearing

Monks in Oklahoma are creating a cloistered compound built to last 1,000 years.


By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer

HULBERT -- A vision born 35 years ago on the campus of the University of Kansas and nurtured in a monastery in France moved closer to reality this week, as monks at Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery moved into their new residence building.

The building is the first part of a monastic complex that will include an 80-by-180-foot church with a 110-foot bell tower.

"This is a dream come true," said the Rev. Phillip Anderson, the prior, or leader, of the Benedictine community living at the monastery.

"All of a sudden, after all these years, it's happening," he said.

To a visitor driving the gravel roads of rural Oklahoma east of Lake Fort Gibson, the new monastery emerges suddenly from the landscape, tall and imposing.

The idea of establishing in the United States a contemplative community, where monks would live a cloistered life in a monastery, was inspired in the early 1970s among a group of KU students by a Catholic professor.

Most Catholic monasteries in this country are devoted to service, operating schools and other institutions, Anderson said.

"We wanted to build a community like the ancient monasteries, a place devoted to the contemplative life and prayer."

During the 1970s, a number of the KU students went to France to experience monastic life. Some stayed. Others left after a few years and later married.

Anderson was among those who stayed, living for 24 years at the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame de Fontgombault, originally founded in 1091 in the province of Berry, France.

In 1999, the dream of building a monastic community in the U.S. took root. Anderson, by then a Catholic priest, led a group of monks who returned to this country to establish a community under the authority of the Abbey of Notre Dame de Fontgombault.

With the blessing of Bishop Edward J. Slattery of the Diocese of Tulsa, the community purchased more than 1,000 acres in a picturesque valley cut by the waters of Clear Creek. The property had a large rustic house, which became their home, and they built other modest structures.

But their dream was to build a European-style monastery, constructed to last 1,000 years.

The monastery is being built as Romanesque architecture, in the style of its parent Fontgombault monastery.

On Jan. 2, some nine years after arriving in Oklahoma, the monks began moving into the new residence building, the first part of the compound to be completed.

Adjacent to that building is the foundation and lower level of what will be the church.

The four-story residence building is divided into two sides. The first, which will face a garden courtyard, contains 36 cells, or rooms, for the monks, the members of the monastic community. All but six rooms are filled.

The courtyard and monks' rooms are part of the cloistered area, not open to the public, as part of the monks' discipline in separation from the world, and silence.

"This is to create an atmosphere conducive to prayer and communion with Christ," Anderson said.

The other side of the residence building has rooms for eight male guests, each with its own full bathroom. The rooms are similar to the monks' rooms but less spartan, Anderson said, and the area will have its own courtyard.

Hospitality is a hallmark of the Benedictine Order, providing a place where visitors can find peace and quiet, and a sense of orientation, sanity and spiritual light, Anderson said.

The lower level has kitchen and dining areas, and other meeting rooms. The original building where the monks lived will be converted into guest housing for couples and families, Anderson said.

The building will be dedicated on April 12.

The Benedictine way of life includes strict disciplines of prayer, study and work. The monks tend sheep, gardens and orchards on the property. They are building wood furniture for the new monastery.