Monastery of Christ in the Desert

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Monastery of Christ in the Desert
Monastery of Christ in the Desert

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery belonging to the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation of Benedictine monasteries.

The monastery is completely surrounded by miles of undisturbed wilderness amidst the Chama Canyon wilderness area 75 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is accessible by a 13 mile dirt road off of US route 84. The geographical co-ordinates of the monastery are 36°22′40.80″N, 106°40′49.80″W.

The monastery was founded in 1964 by a monk of Mount Savior Monastery in New York State, Fr. Aelred Wall OSB.

The original monastery was designed by George Nakashima, the famous Japanese-American architect and woodworker. The chapel is renowned for its beauty and was praised by Thomas Merton as the most perfect monastic chapel he had ever visited.

Christ in the Desert follows the Benedictine life without an external apostolate. It has a guesthouse in which men and women can stay and join the monks in the chapel to share in the monastic Divine Office and in the Mass.

In addition to maintaining the guesthouse, the monks manage a giftshop of books and religious items, which is accessible online and by mail order. The monks also work in agriculture, crafts, computer work and maintenance of the grounds and facilities.

Christ in the Desert has three dependent monasteries. In Mexico, La Soledad near San Miguel de Allende, and St. Mary and All the Saints, in Xalapa. In Chicago USA, Holy Cross Monastery. These monasteries also observe the Benedictine life with no apostolate other than a guesthouse.

The monastery maintains one of the largest private solar power systems in the US, which provides its only source of electricity.

The monastery comprises men from many nations. English is the common language of the house.

[edit] Television Program "The Monastery"

In 2006 the monastery was the setting for a TLC documentary program entitled "The Monastery" (cf. TLC series web site). The documentary was produced by Tiger Aspect of the UK for the TLC cable network in the US.

The series followed the experiences of five laymen who lived in the monastery and observed the monastic way of life for forty days. The series was filmed in early 2006 and was originally broadcast in five episodes in the US on the TLC network in Oct-Nov 2006.

[edit] Internet Pioneers: The Scriptorium @ ChristDesert

In 1995 the monastery published a web site -- www.christdesert.org -- that gained international fame and became one of the world's most visited web sites in the years 1995-1997. The monastery and their web scriptorium made the front page of numerous publications worldwide in feature stories distributed via the AP wire (in 1995) and the NY Times wire (in 1996). Print coverage included page one of the Sunday New York Times, a full color double page spread in USA Today, and the lead in a cover story in Time Magazine. Television feature stories ran on CNN International, CBS Sunday Morning, ABC World News Tonight and Brazil's Fantastico.

The monastery's web scriptorium led to the foundation of an independent research project called NextScribe. NextScribe conducts research in Computer Supported Spiritual Development (CSSD) with a particular emphasis on remaking lay spiritual community according to the wisdom of the tradition of St. Benedict.

[edit] External links