(Abbey of Gethsemani, June 2015)
Trappists are formally known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO) - the Cistercians are Benedictine reformers whose history dates back to the Eleventh Century, and the Trappists represent a reform group within the Cistercian tradition. Despite their different charisms, each order continues to represent a faithful way of living according to the Rule of St. Benedict. The living reality of Benedictine life, as reflected in the Cistercian Order, was noted by a modern Trappist monk, Michael Casey, OCSO:
"The Cistercian Patrimony is not a matter of lifeless stones, but a living reality incarnate in the lives and labors of innumerable brothers and sisters and expressed explicitly by a substantial body of doctrine developed by Cistercian authors of all centuries. We inherit from the past not only buildings and artifacts, not only a lifestyle that many romantically believe has changed little from the Middle Ages, but a tradition of life communicated in a thousand humble ways from one generation to the next. Beneath the Cistercian reality lays a network of beliefs, values and core practices that embody the energy of the charism. The heart of the Cistercian Patrimony is a philosophy of life as validly applied to the twenty-first century as to the twelfth"
(Quoted at p. 20 of Come and See: The Monastic Way for Today by Brendan Freeman, OCSO).
