Overview
On a working farm off Monastery Drive, past the hay bales and the pastures, a community of Trappist-Cistercian nuns keeps a rhythm most of us have forgotten how to hear. Our Lady of the Angels Monastery describes its life simply: wholly ordered to contemplation. The sisters journey together, in their own words, "towards an ever closer personal union with Christ, through mutual care, a balanced life of prayer, work and study." It is a quiet place, and the quiet is the point. A line they keep near the front of everything belongs to Saint Rafael Arnaiz: "Jesus needs souls who listen to him in silence."
That silence is not idleness. Cistercian life braids prayer together with labor, and here the labor is visibly of the land. Photographs from the monastery show a sister on a riding mower, bales stacked in a field at dusk, the ordinary work of keeping a rural property going. The nuns support themselves the old monastic way, by making something with their hands and selling it.
The cheese
What they make is Gouda. The monastery's own materials return to it again and again, and it has become the thing the wider community knows them for. Cheese has a long history as a means of monastic self-support, and at Our Lady of the Angels it is both livelihood and a form of the work that Cistercian life holds in the same regard as prayer. If you have eaten it, you already understand why people drive out here for it. If you haven't, that is reason enough to make the trip.
A contemplative community
The sisters are Roman Catholic, Trappist-Cistercian, and their days are shaped by the balance their tradition prescribes: prayer, work, and study, lived in common. They understand their vocation as intercessory, a life offered "in communion with the Church and in intercession for the world." It is not a retreat from the world so much as a particular way of holding it up.
The community is a living one, still receiving women who feel drawn to this life. In a recent note the sisters asked prayers for two who had joined most recently, Sisters Elke and Beth, "and all the women whom the Lord is calling to become part of our mission of prayer, compassion, and humble service." That mission — prayer, compassion, humble service — is about as plain a summary of the place as you will find, and the sisters wrote it themselves.
Visiting
The monastery sits at 3365 Monastery Dr, Crozet, VA 22932, out where Crozet gives way to farmland and the Blue Ridge stands close on the horizon. The community can be reached at (434) 823-1452, and its website, olamonastery.org, is the best place to learn what they offer and when, including how to obtain their cheese.
A monastery is a different kind of Crozet destination. There is no menu to scan, no gift shop energy, no rush. What is here instead is a group of women who have organized their whole lives around attention — to God, to one another, to the world they pray for. You can taste something of that discipline in the cheese, which is made slowly and made well. And you can feel it the moment you turn off the road onto the drive, where the noise falls away and the fields open up, and the day slows to the pace the sisters keep. It is worth the visit precisely because it asks nothing of you but to be quiet for a while.
More faith in Crozet
Frequently asked questions
Where is Our Lady of the Angels Monastery?
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery is located at 3365 Monastery Dr, Crozet, VA 22932, USA, in Crozet, Virginia.
How do I contact Our Lady of the Angels Monastery?
You can call (434) 823-1452 or visit https://www.olamonastery.org/. Hours and current information are most reliable directly from the business.
What kind of business is Our Lady of the Angels Monastery?
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery is categorized as faith in our Crozet directory. See the description and quick facts above for what makes this listing distinctive.
Sources: olamonastery.org