Like St. Mary's from an earlier post, this is another wonderful monastery that you can visit whenever you want, including staying over in the guest house. A few friends and I spent a weekend here a couple of months ago. The guest house is very comfortable and feels like a big old farm house. About ten brothers live here, and they're around quite a bit when they aren't at their prayers, so it's easy to meet and get to know them. They provide all your food if you're on retreat here, and it is excellent.
You can walk around the grounds of the monastery, which include huge fields, woods, and a couple of small ponds. There is a tiny and extremely cool chapel to Our Lady of Guadalupe out in the woods, which you can access by key if you ask the brothers for it. The brothers' relic room is another major highlight. It's a beautiful room with hundreds of relics on shelves around the walls - they know the right people, and they've been able to accumulate them over the years. They have their chapter meetings and eat dessert every night in this room, hanging out with the saints while they socialize. I unfortunately don't have pictures of this room or the guest house, but I will try to make up for that when I visit again.
Like all Benedictines, these guys pray their daily set of offices in Latin. They are exceptionally good at chanting, and they sound amazing. Unlike some other Benedictines, their Mass is also mostly in Latin, and it is as solemn and beautiful of a liturgy as I've ever been to. If you'd like to learn more or visit, their website is www.abbey.org. Good for them for jumping on that URL early.
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