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Featured News

Gift Shop renovations progressing

Well, we aren't going to make Ash Wednesday for the grand reopening of our renovated Porter's Lodge/Gift Shop—Easter may be a more realistic date for its completion.  Mike (in photo on left) and his colleagues are hard at work painting now and the new carpet goes in next week.  Then we begin … Continue Reading...

Welcome to Holy Cross Abbey

The Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Cross was born out of fire. When the monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, tragically and spectacularly burned to the ground on the night of March 21, 1950, the monks of the abbey were left without a home.

While the abbot of Our Lady of the Valley, Dom Edmund Futterer, labored to re-establish his displaced community at a new site at Spencer, Massachusetts, plans developed for a new foundation. Land was found in the ... Read More

A Note From The Abbot

  23 February: The First Sunday of Lent, in the tradition of St. Benedict, begins at Lent, with the Lenten Book each of us receives for sacred reading during Lent. It's important to begin well. And to continue well, of course. But not to begin well puts a big handicap on how we can run the trace. In a sense, the forty days of Lent is a race and time goes by so … Continue Reading...

News from the Abbey

Spiritual Direction Institute (SDI) in Charlottesville

I know that a number of our readers are familiar with the work of the late Fr. Chester Michael. In 1989 he had established … [Read More...]

Prime Availability at the Retreat House as early as the Weekend of 6 through 8 March

We had been keeping a reservation for a large group from 6 through 13 March only to learn today that they would not be … [Read More...]

A Little Problem With The Heat

We're experiencing some problems with the boiler that heats the church and chapter room. Given how the temperatures still … [Read More...]

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Take Part

You may join us here at the Abbey by a sojourn in our Retreat House for a silent retreat, as a visitor to our Gift Shop or as a family member visiting a member of the community. You can assist at Mass … Find Out More...

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Visit Us

  Whatever your faith or search may be, whether you want to pause for a moment in our church or join us for one of the monastic services or the mass, to visit our Monastery Gift Shop where our own … Find Out More...

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Retreat House

"Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, 'I came as a guest, and you received Me'" (Matthew 25:35) Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, Chapter 53 Rooms in our … Find Out More...

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Cool Spring Natural Cemetery

Sacred Ground - Cool Spring Natural Cemetery is maintained and managed by the Cistercian Monks of Holy Cross Abbey where, for over sixty years, monks have lived on land made sacred by their lives of … [Read More...]

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History

The Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Cross may have been founded in 1950 but our roots run deep. It is not an exaggeration to boast a kinship to the New Monastery, as it was first called, the Abbey of … [Read More...]

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