Wishing everyone a fun and safe Halloween …

Hi All …

I know it’s been a long time since I have posted anything on this site (since July 2017 YIKES!).  And as always I have a million and one reasons why I haven’t posted, but it basically boils down to “shear laziness” on my part. So, here is something I recently did this month with my husband …

I have lived 30+ years here in Oroville and recently my husband and I made a short trip to Vina, California. I have never been to Vina, which is about 45 minutes from where we live. There really is not much to see in Vina … a general grocery store … a post office … a few houses … and one other place that has made it world famous …it is the home of a Roman Catholic Trappist Abbey …  The Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux …

The following is taken from the Church Tour brochure … “The monks of the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux belong to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Roman Catholic monastic order founded in the year A.D. 1098. Cistercian abbeys have been oases of prayer silence, beauty and light. The abbey church of New Clairvaux incorporates a completely restored 12th century ‘Chapter House’ that was originally part of the Santa Maria de Ovila Cistercian abbey in Spain. The Chapter House is the largest example of original Cistercian-Gothic architecture in the Wester Hemisphere, and the oldest building in the United States west of the Mississippi.  It encompasses a magnificent ripple-arched Gothic entry, and was painstakingly dismantled and shipped, stone by stone, to San Francisco after publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst acquired the edifice in 1930.  These sacred stones were then abandoned in Golden Gate Park during The Great Depression until their return to Cistercian soil, where they were awarded to New Clairvaux in 1994.”

On a personal note, my husband and I used to have dinner once a week with a man, Jim Rossas to be exact. One night over dinner Jim told us of how he use to play on a pile of rumble, back in the middle 1930’s, while his mom was at work at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  Little did he know that this rubble was in fact the sacred stones. We are sad that Jim did not live long enough to see these stones reassembled into the Abbey’s new church.

Below are a few of the pictures that were taken during our visit of the church, the wine tasting room, the vineyard and the koi pond …

So, if you are looking for a peaceful place, to get away from the everyday stress, plan on making a little day trip to the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux in Vina, California.

Well, that’s about all for now. Thank you for stopping by and until next time … have a fantastic week!