Cistercian Founders, Cistercian Family

The very first monks of Citeaux were committed to keeping the Rule of St. Benedict. They loved it for what it required of them, what they had vowed: total self-gift. Such totality, though, entailed becoming needy. One cannot be totally self-given and, at the same time, totally self-sufficient.
One way that those monks of 900+ years ago experienced their need, just as we do today, was in the realm of work. St. Benedict honored work and the founding Cistercians embraced it, but they needed help. They couldn’t be fulltime monks and fulltime farmers. So they got creative, and the “lay” vocation was born.
Laybrothers and laysisters were people who wanted to be members of monastic communities while expressing their love of God through direct service to their community. One might say that if the “choir” nuns and monks filled the church’s stalls, the laysisters and laybrothers held up its walls! For hundreds of years, laysisters and laybrothers were indispensable, cherished, and altogether holy.
But in 1965, in keeping with the evolution of humanity’s understanding of social, economic, and moral realities, the Order unified its two kinds of members. Now all the sisters and all the brothers attend all of the liturgical offices and do all the practical work.
Well, almost all the work. Imagine trying to run a candy business when most of your workforce stops to pray the Divine Office multiple times a day! Not to mention running a large household, church, gift shop, farm, guest houses…
Again, the reality is that we need help. Enter: Our dear employees.
“You have to be really really special in order to work here,” said one of our sisters, reflecting upon our crew. And it is so true. Our schedule is strange, our priorities are countercultural, and we don’t even play music while we work, but they’re here day-in and day-out, giving themselves for the good of the cause.
On this Feast of our Cistercian Founders, Saints Robert, Alberic, and Stephen (January 26), we want to thank one of these really really special persons in particular.

Charlene has been a beloved member of our extended community for many years, most recently as Wearer-of-Many-Hats in our Candy House. She’s newly retired, and we miss her. Our only consolation is that now, our really really special Charlene has gone on to bless whomever else she encounters out there, as this next chapter of her life unfolds.
Hardworking, hilarious, and totally other-oriented – Did we mention that we miss her?
Thank you so much for helping us, Charlene, with love from the whole Cistercian Family!