Cistercian Spirituality

The first Cistercian monastery was founded in the late eleventh century by a group of men who desired to serve Christ in a way that had become impossible in the great feudal Abbeys of their day. Inspired by the ancient Rule of St. Benedict, they longed for a life divided between devout prayer and diligent work, one characterized by spiritual discipline, fraternal charity, and material and artistic simplicity. The movement caught fire, and within a hundred years, the spirituality of the “Cistercian renewal” had changed the face of Christian Europe, producing a Doctor of the Church, a pope, numerous respected spiritual writers, and a chain of over 700 monasteries that stretched from Portugal to Syria.

The above menu items elaborate some of the leading aspects of the Cistercian spiritual heritage.