Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: monastery

What makes a place holy?

People go to Monasteries for many reasons. Many are tourist and have their own personal reactions to what they see. For some it is a curiosity, sort of like going to Stone Mountain, or some other site of interest, with each visitor having their own unique take on what they allow in. Some people find… Read More ›

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Origins of Halloween

We’ve all heard the allegations. Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped Church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods. Nothing could be… Read More ›

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Rembert Weakland’s plans to retire out East fall through

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who had hoped to return to the Benedictine monastery where he began his religious life more than 70 years ago, will not be going after all. Weakland, 87, had planned to move from Milwaukee to St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pa., by Sept. 1. But the retired… Read More ›

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When Nuns, Prayer, and Cheese Meet

CROZET, Va. — It’s a business model you won’t see anywhere else: thirteen women who make artisanal Gouda cheese that sells out every year. Their secret ingredient? Prayer. Prayer is also the reason they say they won’t expand. The Gouda Life The women are nuns living in a cloistered Trappist community at Our Lady of the… Read More ›

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Beauty and beer: Monks’ outreach is part of new evangelization

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Even before retired Pope Benedict XVI set up a pontifical council for new evangelization and convoked a world Synod of Bishops on the theme, a new group of Benedictine monks was using Latin and liturgy to reach out to those whose faith was weak or nonexistent. Now they’ve added beer to… Read More ›

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Belmont Abbey: Founder’s Day

In April of 1876, Father Herman Wolf, OSB finally left [Saint Vincent Abbey in] Richmond to start his new monastery. He was accompanied by two Richmond boys, Henry Plageman and Anthony Lauman, who were to be the new schools’s first pupils and the farm’s first laborers. Garibadi [Station, now the City of Belmont] was reached… Read More ›

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Mixing Scripture Into the Batter

CAMBRIDGE, N.Y (New York Times) — At first, the prep work for 200 four-pound cheesecakes in the sunny, commercial kitchen seemed familiar, unremarkable. An elderly woman in a bandanna wielded a cheese cutter, slicing through fat bricks of cream cheese. Another woman with silvery bangs poured heavy cream into the mixer, dipped a tasting pinkie… Read More ›

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California monks build new chapel with medieval stones

Vina, Calif., Jan 10, 2013 / 04:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A California abbey has been home to Cistercian monks since 1955, and now houses a new chapel built of stones taken from a medieval Cistercian monastery in Spain. “These stones have come home…we had a donor event last year because the scaffolding finally came down,… Read More ›

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Silent retreats’ rising popularity poses a challenge: How to handle the quiet

The headline in the monthly Ward 5 newspaper described what sounded like an antidote to the nonstop iPhone-checking, list-making, ladder-climbing, goal-setting, Washington mind-set: “Refuge for the Metropolitan Hermit.” The article described a postage stamp of a cabin, urbanely designed and gloriously sunlit, standing alone amid four acres of maples and white oaks on a protected… Read More ›

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St. Bruno: Found of the Carthusian Order

Denver, Colo., Sep 30, 2012 / 07:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Oct. 6, the Catholic Church commemorates Saint Bruno of Cologne, founder of the Carthusian order of monks who remain notable for their strictly traditional and austere rule of contemplative life. Born in 1030, Bruno is said to have belonged to a prominent family in… Read More ›

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