German-French Novicemaster Conference of Cistercians at Citeaux (France)
October 21, 2024
The Novice Master Conference of the Cistercian Order (Cistercians of the General Observance and the Strict Observance as well as the Bernardines of Esquermes) took place from October 7-14, 2024.
This year the meeting took place at the Abbey of Cîteaux in Burgundy. It was a joyful, blessed reunion, praying and working together with numerous fellow brothers and sisters from many countries in Europe, and even Africa. Prof. Dr Marianne Schlosser and the Abbot of Cîteaux, Dom Pierre-André Berton OCSO, were the speakers at the conference. Father Thaddeus was present as an interpreter. A day excursion took the group to the former Fontenay monastery, the first subsidiary of Clairvaux, to Châtillon, where St. Bernard received his vision of the “Lactatio of Mary” and where we celebrated Holy Mass, as well as to Molesmes, the Benedictine monastery where the monks moved to Cîteaux from in 1098 to found a “New Monastery” - the mother of all Cistercian monasteries.