Preferring Christ

The organisation of the monastery is directed to bringing the monks into close union with Christ, since it is only through the experience of personal love for the Lord Jesus that the specific gifts of the Cistercian vocation can flower. Only if the brothers prefer nothing whatever to Christ will they be happy to persevere in a life that is ordinary, obscure and laborious. And may he lead them all together into 
eternal life. 

Photograph of one of the Abbey's processional crosses by Brother Brian. 
Text from the Constitutions of the Monks.