Dear Friend,

Welcome to our "digital" monastic home.  As our guest, we invite you to enjoy the peace and serenity of our sacred space.  We encourage you to be still and listen to the voice of God in you.  

Within the pages of this site we have tried to provide both an explanation and an experience of our life. Cistercian life is ordinary and simple, yet it is life abundant. As monks we do nothing more than strive to live out the common, Christian, baptismal call to seek God, according to the nine-hundred year old Cistercian tradition. 

We offer worship to God in a life that follows the Rule of St. Benedict in an atmosphere of quiet and solitude. The monastery is traditionally called "a school of brotherly love" where everything is shared in common: heart, mind, burdens. 

We respond to the dialogue of voiced needs and concerns with the tools of good works, humility, mercy, and love. That is, we spend our lives learning how to truly love and be loved. Union then comes most fully in our personal love for Jesus Christ. It is in this love that the Cistercian vocation blossoms into a life-long fruitfulness. To prefer nothing to Christ is, therefore, our purpose, our end, and our happiness.



                                                                                          God's peace be with you,

                                                                                          Your brothers in the Lord
                                                                                          Vina, CA