Since 1848, when 44 Trappist monks from the Abbey of Melleray in western France made themselves a new home in the hills of central Kentucky, Gethsemani has been a hardworking community. Supporting themselves at first by farming, the monks now depend on their mail-order sales of homemade fruitcake and bourbon fudge.
To a Trappist, work is a form of prayer. In fact, the cycle of public prayers the monks chant seven times daily is known as the Work of God, or Opus Dei in Latin. Trappists also pray privately at intervals throughout the day, encountering God through the ancient monastic discipline known as lectio divina, or sacred reading.
