Prayer in an American Cistercian monastery

The primary purpose of this project was to study the prayer lives of the monks at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. The monks are known as Trappists, which is a popular name for their religious order: Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Lekai 1977; Bianco 1992; de Waal 1998; Delisi 2003). The Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit is located 35 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia, and it was the first Trappist monastery in the United States founded by American Cistercians. It is also the first daughter house of Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey. Gethsemani was home to the famous monk Thomas Merton. Twenty-one monks from Gethsemani founded the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in 1944. The monks built the original structures, including a large church. During September and October of 2013, the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit was home to 38 monks including three visiting monks and three monks who have since died. The monastery is supported by a retreat house, a conservation burial ground, a bookstore, a garden supply shop, a stained glass business, and a bakery which produces fudge, biscotti, and fruitcake