Bishop William K. Weigand joined them July 2, along with friends, family, women religious, and members of the Cistercian order from around the country, for a Mass celebrating the abbey’s founding in 1955, on the feast day of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to Elizabeth.

Dom Damien Thompson, abbot of the Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky — starting point for the first monks who ventured to Vina — spoke in his homily about the hardships of joining together with a band of strangers to live a monastic communal life.

“There is a certain euphoria to enter a community with that one intention — to live for God — but it wears thin as the years pass and the day-to-day troubles begin to climb, and the hoped for consolations disappear,” Abbot Thompson said. “Human relationship is a great mystery. It’s one challenge to come to live for God, and another when you discover that the search is tested through life in communion with strangers with whom your only bond is the dream. Community life makes people real, gives them authenticity if they have the courage and generosity to live it out from day to day.”

When the Cistercian order was founded more than 1,000 years ago, he said, “it was thought foolishness for a small band of men to set off for a swampy bog to establish a monastery, but through the grace of God it worked. Today you are witnessing the same success of a small group of men who set out to fulfill a dream and give it birth through the work of their hands, to develop a small piece of land consecrated to God. What we are witnessing on this 50th anniversary of the founding of this monastery is the glory of God expressed in the lives of men who accomplished it with the presence of Jesus in their midst.”

Hospitality is a hallmark of the Cistercians — known as Trappists — who welcome people to spend days in quiet meditation and personal retreat housed in guest quarters at Vina.

In a display of hospitality today, Aug. 6, the monks are hosting an open house from 1 to 5 p.m that also features the grand opening of the New Clairvaux Winery and Tasting Room. Monks will assist visitors as they tour the monastery’s buildings, grounds, and the Sacred Stones project — a medieval Spanish Cistercian chapter house being rebuilt next to the church.

All the doors will be thrown open wide, including those leading to the monastery’s cloistered section.

“We’ll be opening the enclosed area,” Abbot Thomas Davis said. Normally only the 25 men who are members of the Trappist community at Vina are allowed in those areas of the monastery.

“Our first mission is spiritual,” said the 71-year-old abbot who arrived at Vina in 1955 and became the abbot in 1970. “We are a Trappist order, a cloistered group of contemplative men. Each monastery is totally autonomous. We enter and belong here. We have a commitment to the monastic lifestyle, which implies poverty and chastity.”

The monks follow the Rule of St. Benedict, established in the sixth century. “A key rule is that monks support themselves by manual labor,” the abbot said.

That labor has centered on agriculture since the first group of monks arrived to found the monastery. Now the monks have branched into wine-making. The debut release, under the label New Clairvaux Vineyard, will be available for sale during the open house.

“We went into the wine business because of history of this property,” Abbot Davis noted.

The 590-acre monastery was originally part of Peter Lassen’s 22,000-acre Rancho Bosquejo. The land was purchased in 1881 by Leland Stanford, who turned it into one of the world’s largest vineyards.

When the Trappists acquired Vina in 1955, they initially relied on dairy farming, supplemented by nascent orchards. A few years later they sold the dairy herd and focused on walnut and prune harvests. In 2000, they returned a small part of the acreage to its vintage roots.

Stanford’s wine venture failed, mainly because temperatures in the upper Sacramento Valley were too hot for the grapes. The vines that the monks planted are new varieties developed to weather the heat.

“Our primary goal is a life of contemplative prayer. But to have the spiritual dimension we have to support ourselves,” Abbot Davis said.

The name of the monastery was chosen to honor St. Bernard, the founding abbot of the Abbey of Clairvaux, France. When the monks from Gethsemani came to Northern California seeking a location for an abbey, another Bernard was instrumental in establishing their monastery.

The monks fell in love with the old Stanford property, owned at the time by Bernard Flynn. He was not eager to sell the working farm bordered by a Sacramento River tributary. Eventually he was won over, and the Flynn family and their Pacific Farms have remained associated with the monastery.

Under the mutual label, “A Tale of Two Farms,” the monastery has begun selling the Flynn’s Pacific Sun olive oil.

“We’ve had a close relationship with the Flynns over the years,” Abbot Davis said. “Vince Flynn’s father, Bernard, sold the acreage to the Cistercians. Jane Flynn (Vincent Flynn’s widow) is a very close personal friend of the abbey, and their son Brendon, from Pacific Farms, has been a huge help to us.”

Jane Flynn, a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Red Bluff, values the monks at Vina as “men of graciousness and great humility.”

“They’re kind and affectionate, warm and generous,” she said. “The peace of the monastic life shines through in their smiles and whole demeanor. It’s been a real gift for our family to be involved with them both agriculturally and spiritually.”

For her, the experience of visiting the monastery in Vina is summed up in a quote from the famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton:

“Actually, what matters about the monastery is precisely that it is radically different from the world. The apparent ‘pointlessness’ of the monastery in the eyes of the world is exactly what gives it a real reason for existing. In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be a place of silence, inner discipline and peace.”

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