LaserMonks of Spring Bank

The New York Times has a story on the Cistercian monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank and the women who run their online business, LaserMonks:

The Rev. Bernard McCoy, the monastery’s superior, had the idea for LaserMonks.com. But the enterprise really took off when the monks turned it over to two entrepreneurial laywomen who originally came from Colorado to give them advice and never left.

“We feel we’re stewards of their business, and we really put bread on the table,” said one of the women, Sarah Caniglia, sitting in their impeccably organized office amid lighted candles and CDs of Gregorian chants. “I feel like the head of a family, but the boys are grown up and they’re never going to get married.”

Father McCoy, who at 42 already has a monk’s bald pate and fringe of hair, said: “Our life as monks is not set up to sit around and answer phones. We’re supposed to be a little removed.”

“We are professional pray-ers,” said Father McCoy, who wears a white habit, a long black smock called a scapular cinched with a leather belt and, on his feet, knock-off Crocs. Some days he wears a T-shirt that says, “Ask me about my Vow of Silence.”

In the article they mention that a Br. Stephen Treat (whom I once knew as a fellow Episcopalian parishioner) has a blog, which he updates twice a week. The anecdotes ranging from the progress of the abbey gardens to rescuing stranded teenagers in the middle of the night. Those interested in the quiet, but seemingly never dull life of a monastery should check it out .