A Refuge in the Desert:
Praying the Liturgy of the Hours
Benedictine Monks Work to Establish New Monastery For centuries, men and women seeking contemplative lives have withdrawn to the wilderness, to live apart from the distractions of the modern world. Early church fathers and mystics lived as hermits in deserts, purposely seeking isolation in order to remove all distractions from a focus on God.
be a three-story main building, large enough to house over a dozen monks.
Now, the high desert and pine forests of the Diocese of Gallup will soon host a new contemplative community of Benedictine monks, just as deserts and remote places have called to monastic communities for hundreds of years.
The priory in the Diocese of Gallup is part of the congregation of Benedictines at Clear Creek Abbey in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was itself originally established as an American congregation of the Abbey at Fontgombault, France.
Nestled in the Zuni Mountains of the Cibola Forest is a brand-new house – or “priory” - for five monks, consisting of several small bedrooms (cells), a kitchen, and a modest chapel. Just outside this priory is the newlydug foundation for what will soon
Although the Clear Creek monastery is only 20 years old, it has already experienced enormous growth. There are so many young men who apply yearly to Clear Creek that at one point, many of the monks were forced to sleep outside in wooden tools sheds
24 Voice of the Southwest | dioceseofgallup.org
“Someday we will send a colony of twelve monks plus one superior, like the twelve Apostles and Christ - that’s how we usually do it at the beginning,” said Fr. Philip Anderson, the monks’ superior, known as an Abbot.
until more dormitories could be built. Once Clear Creek was named an official Abbey, Fr. Anderson was named as the first Abbot. Fr. Anderson is an alumnus of the University of Kansas, along with several Catholics who ended up starting families and moving to Gallup. One day, passing near Gallup, Fr. Anderson decided to visit, and stayed with Herb Mosher, one of his old classmates. Mosher currently runs the Catholic Peoples Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Diocese of Gallup, and commutes in from his home in the Zuni mountains. Fr. Anderson had expressed a worry to Mosher that the Clear Creek Monastery would soon have to turn away applicants due to a lack of room. Then, after a morning walk in the mountains one day, the Abbot came back and declared he had had an epiphany. “He was walking around and saying