Christian Family Abbeys – Lamps Lighting the Way for our World
Faith and Families First
Abbeys were the original centers of Christian family life that sustained our faith, incubated our culture and delivered Western Civilization. Organized for self-sufficiency they charitably served the residents, visitors and wider community, dedicated to worship, study, industry, art and ministry. Renowned for language, learning and literacy, every type of productive activity was advanced among vineyards, orchards, bird coops, fish traps, farming, herding and tanning. Architects and builders raised structures for chapel, dormitory, refectory, library, scriptoria, school, guest homes, work shops and storehouses. The knowledge of the past was preserved in libraries, taught in the schools and reproduced in scriptoria, while artisans created treasures of the Western World of wood, metal, jewels and stone in unique Insular style. Among all the students, tradesmen, craftsmen, artisans and scholars was a focus on education, ministry and missions.
Born with Jesus our Christian faith was spread widely by apostles along Roman roads. The Fall of the Empire saw pagan barbarians overwhelm Roman Civilization. For long centuries our Faith survived only in monasteries and Abbeys, those centers of Christian life apart from the brutal pagan, barbarian world. In time, missionaries from Gaelic Christian Abbeys carried forth the Gospel of life, love, peace, literacy and learning, purpose and progress, and charity that ignited Western Christian Civilization. The advance was unprecedented, unstoppable and spectacular: by 800 Charlemagne consolidated a Christian Europe; the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, Reformation, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution followed all sparked by Christian literacy, learning, creativity and progress as human triumph built upon triumph.
Christian character, rights and responsibilities inspired the political, economic and religious freedoms enshrined in creating the United States of America. The founding of America combined a Constitutional Democratic Republic with Capitalism and Christian character to create the greatest engine of liberty, progress, health, wealth and charity in world history.
With Liberty comes responsibility and our Founders knew that Christian character was necessary to successfully manage natural tensions among competing freedoms. They knew that absent overlords of Crown or Church, for America to succeed Public Virtue was essential, coming only from Private Virtue, coming only from Religious Faith. It was Families that carried and nurtured Christian Character and built our incomparable culture.
Today, families desire to leave a legacy to their future generations, but of course there must first be a family, and a future. Beyond simply being born into family, our heirs must understand and champion family unity around meaning, purpose and mission. Assuming a united family to receive and pass on a unique legacy, all will prefer a future culture with values respecting ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ including the honorable accumulation and direction of private wealth. Our future depends upon Families and Culture, which in turn depend upon our Christian Faith.
Christian Character advanced by Families and is our Legacy. Christian Family Abbeys were the original incubators of Western Christian Civilization and today will flourish again to nurture great Families to champion our Culture and ensure a thriving civilization for future generations.