Last week I had the privilege of guiding a retreat for the lay associates of Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey, an Olivetan Benedictine monastery sheltered beneath the Pecos Mountains in northern New Mexico. The monastery’s abbot is Father Aidan Gore, a soft-spoken Scotsman who exudes gentleness and humility, two of the most important of Benedictine values.

What impressed me most, though, was the number of times Abbot Aidan expressed gratitude. He never failed to thank the monastery’s lay associates – known as Oblates – every time they gathered for prayer with the monks. He thanked them when they attended Mass on Sunday. He also thanked the local residents from Pecos who came, and the lone musician who led the singing.

He singled out in a special way young couples there with small children, asking how they were doing, waving at the children during Mass, and enduring good-naturedly the crying babies and fidgeting toddlers. He noticed a group of young men who were apparently attending Mass at the monastery for the first time, gave them a special greeting, and oh yes, thanked them too for being there.

Abbot Aidan is a man who carries a heavy burden. As with many monasteries, the number of monks at Our Lady of Guadalupe has been shrinking for decades and is now down to just eight. Most of them are over the age of 65, and two are in their nineties. The abbot is responsible not only for the monks’ well-being, but the spiritual direction of the 273 lay Oblates affiliated with the monastery. He presides over a large facility with dozens of immaculately kept, comfortably appointed guest rooms open to the monastery’s visitors, as well as nearly a thousand acres of land. How he keeps it all going, only he and God knows.

Despite their age and in some cases obvious infirmities, the monks of Our Lady of Guadalupe are ever gracious. They spend time with the guests, and attended the wine and cheese social the abbot arranged on a Saturday night for the visiting Oblates, even though it began at 7:30 p.m., an hour when most of the monks usually retire for the day.

The monastery is situated alongside the Pecos River (one of the cleanest rivers I’ve ever seen), amid the lush greenery of the high desert mountains. The monks of Our Lady of Guadalupe seem determined to keep their home an oasis of quiet contemplation for a world desperately in need of serenity. I’m reminded of something my friend the Trappist monk Brother Paul Quenon once told me. “Contemplation is just a big fat word for gratitude.”

I left Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey grateful for the setting, for the prayer life of the monastery, and for the monks and lay associates who help keep it going. “Now I know what has been holding the world together and keeping it from cracking into pieces,” the famous spiritual writer Thomas Merton wrote on his first visit to a Trappist monastery. “It is this monastery and others like it.” I felt much the same way during my time in Pecos.

The next time you are in the southwest, please consider stopping by Our Lady of Guadalupe and extending to Abbot Aidan and his monastic family a hearty thanks. In the coming week, I will try to be like the abbot in openly and extravagantly expressing my gratitude for the people and many blessings in my life. What blessings are you grateful for?