VINA, Calif.— A California abbey has been home to Cistercian
monks since 1955, and it now houses a new chapel built of stones
taken from a medieval Cistercian monastery in Spain. “These
stones have come home. ... We had a donor event last year
because the scaffolding finally came down, and you can see the
glory of this vaulted stone chapter house,” the abbot, Father
Paul Mark Schwan, told Catholic News Agency Jan. 7. “We sang our
Cistercian ‘Salve’ at the conclusion of this event. That was the
first time since 1835 that these stones had heard the chanting
of, as it were, ‘their’ Cistercian monks,” he added. “It was a
very touching moment, not just for our monks, but for the guests
who were present for that.” The new chapel for the Abbey of New
Clairvaux — located in Vina, Calif. — is made from stones that
had been used for a chapter house created in the late 12th
century for Spain’s Santa Maria de Ovila monastery. The
monastery was seized by the Spanish government in 1835, and from
then on the buildings were