Heavenly gifts from monasteries for Christmas

Christmas shoppers face a myriad of choices as they start their quest for the perfect gift for friends and family. “Black Friday” – the Day after Thanksgiving when US retailers give thanks to the millions of customers who throng to stores throughout the country – means long lines at cash registers, and frantic dashes to get just the right toy for a child, or perhaps another sweater, necktie, comfy slippers, or a dressing gown for adults.

While shoppers may or may not find just the right thing, they will have spent time traveling to and from stores or poring over catalogues that they might have spent more profitably at home with their families. Giving time and care to friends and family is, of course, the more profitable gift.

Giving gifts is, of course, the giving of a token – that is to say, some symbol or replacement of something much more precious. So rather than a new “Transformer”, a digital camera, a pashmina shawl, or an Audemars Piguet watch, why not give something that tells more succinctly of the intrinsic value of Christmas that the giver bestows upon the receiver? But where can we go to get these things?

For centuries in the Christian era (and even before, among the Essenes), spiritual wayfarers sought out deserted places to find solace and inspiration – those necessary aids in the pilgrimage of life. Over time, solitary penitents were joined by others to become communities of people seeking real truth and beauty. These became monasteries, a gift from the Christian east that Holy Benedict brought to the West where he established his rule for living in community that is still followed by monastics and religious orders to this day.

In places like Iona, Monte Cassino, Carmel, Sinai, Athos, holy men and women carry out not only the liturgy – the communal work of worship – but also labor in their fields and workshops to produce things that provide a glimpse into a world of another order.

Of course, monks and religious have provided not only spiritual blessings but spirits as well. It was the clergy, after all, that invented the methods to produce the champagne and benedictine that are enjoyed at bibulous celebrations. Monasteries have also produced great works of art such as icons but also the more mundane pleasures and necessities of this world such as beer, bread, sweets, and wool.

Monasteries produce works that are now available to shoppers around the world. Being that it was in the monasteries that the light of Classical and Christian learning was preserved through diligent inquiry and the copying of books, it stands to reason that monastics have been equally diligent in using the medium of the internet to reach out to the world.

Without changing out of their pajamas, shoppers can click on scores of websites erected by monasteries and other religious groups throughout the world. A quick review shows that they offer books, icons, Christmas cards and ornaments, Nativity scenes, wood carvings, fruitcake, jams and preserves, and even that puppy promised for Yuletide.

There appears to be a common thread to the many online monastery gift shops: lots of offerings of soaps, candles and beeswax, recorded music, and useful aids for prayer such as rosaries, incense, books, and icons. This stems from the monastic communities’ self-sufficiency and hard work. Monastic communities often manufactured clothes from wool sheared from their own sheep, for instance, and produced honey from hives that pollinated their vineyards, groves, and orchards.

The Holy Transfiguration Skete in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, for example, offers jams and jellies produced by this Byzantine Catholic community. The St. Isaac the Syrian Skete in Wisconsin offers handpainted icons – windows into heaven.

At MysticMonkCoffee.com you can purchase heavenly blends of coffee in vacuum-packed containers for your delectation by monks of the ancient Carmelite order.

If you are one of those people who really, really must have fruitcake at Christmas, then try those available at Holy Spirit Monastery in Georgia. The monastery also supplies delicious fudge.

The Genesee Abbey in upstate New York also produces excellent fruitcake that is available by mail order if you can’t actually get to their store on the abbey grounds. 

The Poor Clares, a Franciscan order of contemplative nuns, has numerous locati0ons throughout the world. Many offer work of their hands to support their lives of prayer and penance. See http://srsclare.com/our-gift-store/christmas-cards/ and PoorClare.org

Benedictine nuns make soothing soap, hand crèmes, and candles that are available at http://www.monasterycreations.com/

Orthodox cards, icons, incense, books and other goods are available for Christmas at http://www.archangelsbooks.com

A short cut to reach many products offered by monasteries is at http://www.monasterygreetings.com