We are a community of Trappist monks who live a contemplative life of prayer and work. We hope that you enjoy the diary entries below. They are our way of giving you a greater glimpse into the lifestyle we live. We will update them regularly. Please also visit us at the Abbey's website by following the link below. May God's peace and love dwell richly in your hearts.
"Cistercians have been dedicated to Our Lady from the very beginning of our Order in the 12th century. She is our life, our sweetness and our hope. She is bride, she is Mother, she is Queen, and none of these has passed from the present into mere memory. She is the sign of the Church: glorified when her full number is attained, purified from whatever is nothingness and non-being, from all the smudges and stains of the sins of her members. Whatever praise rises to her goes right through her to God, as light through a pane of glass. There is in her nothing to block the flow of the glory of God. And some day, with the help of her prayers, there will be nothing in us to block that stream of glory. May we too, in our small capacity, be windows of heaven for others, at least in our dying moment! But whether or not that happens in any perceptible way, may we be drawn more and more into the mystery of God, in Jesus, through Mary, even now. Seek, knock, ask, and it will be given to you!"
Fr. Timothy Scott was elected as the seventh abbot of Spencer for a six-year term on Thursday, July 23. Dom Timothy was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1960. He entered Spencer in 1988 and made his solemn profession in 1994. At the time of his election he was novice master in the community. Congratulations Dom Timothy!
We celebrate the Solemnity of our monastic Father, St. Benedict of Nursia, who, in the sixth century, gave us the Christ-centered Rule by which thousands of monks and nuns have lived through the centuries and by which we live here at St. Joseph’s Abbey. People might be tempted to ask what relevance a sixth century rule could have for the 21 st century. Pope Leo XIV seems convinced of its relevance not only to monks but to all people. In the recent (May 2026) encyclical On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, Pope Leo writes, (quote)“Since the emergence of her Social Doctrine, the Church has emphasized the protection of workers and the need to combat all forms of exploitation. Above all, the Magisterium has recognized in work ‘the essential key’ to understanding the entire social question, since it is through work that individuals develop many dimensions of their existence. In view of this, we can understand the great intuition of Saint Benedict of Nurs...
SPENCER – Father Peter was born on November 25, 1942 to ethnic German parents, Karl and Elisabeth Schmidt, in the Moravian town of Mährisch-Trübau, now part of the Czech Republic. As the Russian army approached the area in 1945 after World War II ended, the entire family, including the five children, fled to Braunschweig, West Germany. As a schoolboy there, Peter often passed the 12 th century Cistercian Abbey of Riddagshausen, now a parish church, and it was those walks to the imposing structure that kindled in him a monastic vocation. In college he studied pedagogics, German literature and history. Post-graduate work continued with philosophy and theology classes in Salzburg, Austria. After completing his master’s degree in 1970, he went to the Trappist Cistercian Abbey of Mariawald in Heimbach, Germany, for a prolonged period of discernment. He entered the monastery that same year, taking the monastic name Gotthard. After professing temporary vows, he was sent to the University of...
