Catholic

The roots of our Cistercian monastic life reach down to the apostolic community of the early Church. Like that community, it is enough for us to devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. We sanctify the day by gathering seven times daily to meet the Lord in the Prayer of the Church—the opus Dei or the Divine Office—and we gather each morning to break bread in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The worship and praise of God permeate all our activities when they are nourished by sacred reading (lectio divina) and mindfulness of God’s presence. And like the apostolic community, we hold all things in common, no one claiming any private ownership (see Acts 2:42, 44).