Summer Interns have arrived!  We are hosting three young women in June and July and two more in August.  The women come from different backgrounds and educations: this summer, several interns have come to us from divinity schools around the country.  At Redwoods, they participate in a different sort of school, a schola caritas (school of charity), as our founding Cistercian fathers of the 11th century called monastic life.

Monastic Internship program is in full swing at Redwoods Abbey. Already two women have completed their internships.  The young women help us with gardening, cooking and miscellaneous chores while learning about prayer and monastic life.

The monastery garden has been improved with a new fence and gates.  Some of the gates were hand crafted, adding a distinctive flair and artistic touch to our already luxuriant garden.  

The present pandemic has turned our lives, world-wide, upside down. Covid-19 has affected the global community and its economies in ways that none of us have lived through before now. Through the pandemic we see how interconnected we all are. Are not the living ‘saints’ those in the medical field who willingly risk their lives daily to care for us? As we live surrounded by so much uncertainty about the present and the immediate future, perhaps it is good to step back and ponder our lives. What, as a monastic community, do we need to renew or work to change in order to continue to mission God’s enduring word of life, of hope, of love?

(Above Thomas Merton at Redwoods Abbey, 1968)

“Through God’s Word the monastics are trained in a discipline of heart and action to be responsive to the Holy Spirit and so attain purity of heart and a continual mindfulness of God’s presence” (CST 2). This is a profound statement given right at the beginning of our Order’s Constitutions, which explicate the ‘nature an