Ecce Fiat: The Annunciation Advent 2012

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

It has been fourteen years now since we arrived here in eastern Oklahoma in order to establish a Benedictine monastery under the patronage of Our Lady of the Annunciation. And so it is with great joy that I announce our very first chant collection, recorded right here at Clear Creek Abbey, dedicated to Our Lady in the mystery of her Annunciation. Entitled: Ecce Fiat, the enclosed disk is our Christmas gift to you: a recording of Gregorian chant by our monastic choir. In this Advent season, as we look forward to the great feast of Christmas, it is most appropriate

that we humbly contemplate the mysterious nine month gesta-tion of grace that began with Our Lady’s fiat on the feast of the Annunciation.

Looking back over the course of fourteen years, it is amazing what Divine Providence has brought to fruition in such a short time. It was on the feast of the Assumption in 1998 that His Excellency Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa signed a charter of foundation, welcoming a group of thirteen Benedictine monks from Notre-Dame de Fontgombault Abbey in France to his diocese. Today, forty one monks occupy

several large buildings, including a partially completed, Romanesque-style abbatial church. It is a story of the grace of God, but also of the immense help received from friends — like you — along the way. It has been our dream — and more than a dream: our prayerful hope — to ‘build something beautiful for God’. . . .

But how did a group of thirteen Benedictine monks from the heart of France come to found a monastery in eastern Oklahoma? More surprising yet, how was it that most of these monks were actually Americans, returning to their native country?

We are outgrowing our living quarters and at present are forced to put monks into used trailers and other low-cost housing. But we must forge ahead. Will you be a part of the next fourteen years? I have filled this letter with many photographs of the Abbey’s progress, so that you can see the tremendous work of God that is taking shape. Would you like to be part of this bold adventure? Please join our mailing list and — above all — join your prayers to ours for the restoration of a truly Christian civilization, based upon the worship of the Father “in spirit

and in truth.” (Gospel according to Saint John 4:23-24) The monks thank you in advance for your support, both spiritual and material, in helping us to build something beautiful for God.

May God bless you and yours, and may Our Lady of the Annunciation smile upon you. I send my blessing.

br. Philip Anderson, abbot

P.S. With the coming of Christmas, I would like to remind you that we have some beautiful gifts available at our website: clearcreekmonks.org. We have rosaries, icons, books and chant CDs — including fully-packaged copies of Ecce Fiat, our very first Clear Creek recording.

– 4 –Foundation for the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek

5804 West Monastery Road • Hulbert, OK 74441 • Fax: (918) 772-1044 • www.clearcreekmonks.org

Five years ago: Advent, 2007 — A group of monks approach Clear Creek Monastery under bare December trees.

An aerial view of Clear Creek Abbey as it appears today.

Our ever-growing Monastic Community, pictured here with His Excellency Paul Coakley, Archbishop of Oklahoma City; October, 2012.

Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey begins with a story . . .

For God there could be no surprise about what happened: first at a very ordinary American university in the 1970s, and then at an ancient Abbey on the far side of the sea. But for the human beings involved, it was impossible to imagine, much less foresee. It all started with a special liberal arts program for freshmen and sophomores at the University of Kansas, a new

course meant to meet the requirements for studies in Western Civilization. The three professors who created this program dubbed it an “experiment in tradition.” This name did not really surprise anyone, as everyone in those days (or so it seemed) was engaged in some sort of experiment — in one revolution or another. Why not an experiment in the Great Books of Western Civilization?

Something unusual occurred, however, as the “experiment in tradition”, known as The Integrated Humanities Program, got under way. Although some of the students dropped out of the Program, finding the “experiment” unsettling, many others became strongly attached to the three professors and to their common vision of education. As the students read their way through Homer’s Odyssey and The Aeneid

of Virgil — not to mention such Christian classics as The Confessions of Saint Augustine — the characters seemed to step off the page and walk into their lives.

What really made the IHP controversial was the phenomenon of conversions, especially to the Catholic Church. The result of teaching the Great Books in a favorable light — without the withering effects of relativism and literary criticism so present in most universities — was to open minds to a certain unity, to an “integer,” that of an integrated view of human life. How exactly such a process of education could lead to religious conversions in a secular university is too long a story to be recounted here, but a great adventure had begun.

In 1972 a couple of these students decided to set out on a trip to Europe in search of a monastery, where they hoped to find the concrete realization of what they perceived as the central truth of the Great Books. The practical idea was to bring back to America some monks and with them the purely contemplative form of Benedictine monastic life that seemed to be missing in their homeland. The young men were also looking

for a monastery that still used the ancient Latin liturgy. As impossible as the endeavor may have seemed, it truly met with success when the two travelers arrived at Our Lady of Fontgombault Abbey in the heart of France. It was behind these ancient stone walls, and at Fontgombault’s “daughter houses” elsewhere in France, that over twenty-five Americans would eventually try the life of a monk, eight of them persevering under the monastic habit until the moment assigned by Divine Providence for their return to America.

The dream finally became a reality in 1999, over a quarter of a century after the initial contact with the French monks. On September 15th of that year a group of monks including not only the Americans — but also several French and Canadians — arrived at the airport of Tulsa, Oklahoma to found Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery, under the patronage of Mary’s Annunciation. It truly is a wonderful thing to see how an “experiment in tradition” led them — us — to new and undreamt of horizons and how this monastic adventure eventually led us back to the place where we began — in the American heartland. Sometimes a far-off calling can lead a man all the way home.

Over the course of the last decade, through the gentle guidance of Divine Providence and the countless friends of the Monastery, we have made great strides to build a Benedictine Abbey (to last a thousand years!) right here in the heart of America. To date, we have completed about one third of the entire building project. Our architect, Professor Thomas Gordon Smith, is busy at present perfecting plans for the Chapter House and the Refectory, not to mention the upper portion of the church. It is an immense endeavor that will surely take many more years to complete.

– 2 – – 3 –

Liturgy in the new Abbatial Church, September 2012.

The early days at Clear Creek: Monks praying in the monastery crypt.

2010, February: Ringing of bells, when Clear Creek became an abbey.

2010, Easter Vigil: the lighting of the paschal fire.

Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey begins with a story . . .

For God there could be no surprise about what happened: first at a very ordinary American university in the 1970s, and then at an ancient Abbey on the far side of the sea. But for the human beings involved, it was impossible to imagine, much less foresee. It all started with a special liberal arts program for freshmen and sophomores at the University of Kansas, a new

course meant to meet the requirements for studies in Western Civilization. The three professors who created this program dubbed it an “experiment in tradition.” This name did not really surprise anyone, as everyone in those days (or so it seemed) was engaged in some sort of experiment — in one revolution or another. Why not an experiment in the Great Books of Western Civilization?

Something unusual occurred, however, as the “experiment in tradition”, known as The Integrated Humanities Program, got under way. Although some of the students dropped out of the Program, finding the “experiment” unsettling, many others became strongly attached to the three professors and to their common vision of education. As the students read their way through Homer’s Odyssey and The Aeneid

of Virgil — not to mention such Christian classics as The Confessions of Saint Augustine — the characters seemed to step off the page and walk into their lives.

What really made the IHP controversial was the phenomenon of conversions, especially to the Catholic Church. The result of teaching the Great Books in a favorable light — without the withering effects of relativism and literary criticism so present in most universities — was to open minds to a certain unity, to an “integer,” that of an integrated view of human life. How exactly such a process of education could lead to religious conversions in a secular university is too long a story to be recounted here, but a great adventure had begun.

In 1972 a couple of these students decided to set out on a trip to Europe in search of a monastery, where they hoped to find the concrete realization of what they perceived as the central truth of the Great Books. The practical idea was to bring back to America some monks and with them the purely contemplative form of Benedictine monastic life that seemed to be missing in their homeland. The young men were also looking

for a monastery that still used the ancient Latin liturgy. As impossible as the endeavor may have seemed, it truly met with success when the two travelers arrived at Our Lady of Fontgombault Abbey in the heart of France. It was behind these ancient stone walls, and at Fontgombault’s “daughter houses” elsewhere in France, that over twenty-five Americans would eventually try the life of a monk, eight of them persevering under the monastic habit until the moment assigned by Divine Providence for their return to America.

The dream finally became a reality in 1999, over a quarter of a century after the initial contact with the French monks. On September 15th of that year a group of monks including not only the Americans — but also several French and Canadians — arrived at the airport of Tulsa, Oklahoma to found Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery, under the patronage of Mary’s Annunciation. It truly is a wonderful thing to see how an “experiment in tradition” led them — us — to new and undreamt of horizons and how this monastic adventure eventually led us back to the place where we began — in the American heartland. Sometimes a far-off calling can lead a man all the way home.

Over the course of the last decade, through the gentle guidance of Divine Providence and the countless friends of the Monastery, we have made great strides to build a Benedictine Abbey (to last a thousand years!) right here in the heart of America. To date, we have completed about one third of the entire building project. Our architect, Professor Thomas Gordon Smith, is busy at present perfecting plans for the Chapter House and the Refectory, not to mention the upper portion of the church. It is an immense endeavor that will surely take many more years to complete.

– 2 – – 3 –

Liturgy in the new Abbatial Church, September 2012.

The early days at Clear Creek: Monks praying in the monastery crypt.

2010, February: Ringing of bells, when Clear Creek became an abbey.

2010, Easter Vigil: the lighting of the paschal fire.

Ecce Fiat: The Annunciation Advent 2012

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

It has been fourteen years now since we arrived here in eastern Oklahoma in order to establish a Benedictine monastery under the patronage of Our Lady of the Annunciation. And so it is with great joy that I announce our very first chant collection, recorded right here at Clear Creek Abbey, dedicated to Our Lady in the mystery of her Annunciation. Entitled: Ecce Fiat, the enclosed disk is our Christmas gift to you: a recording of Gregorian chant by our monastic choir. In this Advent season, as we look forward to the great feast of Christmas, it is most appropriate

that we humbly contemplate the mysterious nine month gesta-tion of grace that began with Our Lady’s fiat on the feast of the Annunciation.

Looking back over the course of fourteen years, it is amazing what Divine Providence has brought to fruition in such a short time. It was on the feast of the Assumption in 1998 that His Excellency Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa signed a charter of foundation, welcoming a group of thirteen Benedictine monks from Notre-Dame de Fontgombault Abbey in France to his diocese. Today, forty one monks occupy

several large buildings, including a partially completed, Romanesque-style abbatial church. It is a story of the grace of God, but also of the immense help received from friends — like you — along the way. It has been our dream — and more than a dream: our prayerful hope — to ‘build something beautiful for God’. . . .

But how did a group of thirteen Benedictine monks from the heart of France come to found a monastery in eastern Oklahoma? More surprising yet, how was it that most of these monks were actually Americans, returning to their native country?

We are outgrowing our living quarters and at present are forced to put monks into used trailers and other low-cost housing. But we must forge ahead. Will you be a part of the next fourteen years? I have filled this letter with many photographs of the Abbey’s progress, so that you can see the tremendous work of God that is taking shape. Would you like to be part of this bold adventure? Please join our mailing list and — above all — join your prayers to ours for the restoration of a truly Christian civilization, based upon the worship of the Father “in spirit

and in truth.” (Gospel according to Saint John 4:23-24) The monks thank you in advance for your support, both spiritual and material, in helping us to build something beautiful for God.

May God bless you and yours, and may Our Lady of the Annunciation smile upon you. I send my blessing.

br. Philip Anderson, abbot

P.S. With the coming of Christmas, I would like to remind you that we have some beautiful gifts available at our website: clearcreekmonks.org. We have rosaries, icons, books and chant CDs — including fully-packaged copies of Ecce Fiat, our very first Clear Creek recording.

– 4 –Foundation for the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek

5804 West Monastery Road • Hulbert, OK 74441 • Fax: (918) 772-1044 • www.clearcreekmonks.org

Five years ago: Advent, 2007 — A group of monks approach Clear Creek Monastery under bare December trees.

An aerial view of Clear Creek Abbey as it appears today.

Our ever-growing Monastic Community, pictured here with His Excellency Paul Coakley, Archbishop of Oklahoma City; October, 2012.