A place of encounters
We are delighted that you are here. The Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach is a place of lively encounters. People meet people and people meet God. Benedictine life stands for openness, respect and appreciation.
In Maria Laach, landscape and culture – God’s creation and the creative power of man – are uniquely combined. The abbey church of Maria Laach, where people have proclaimed their praise to God for centuries, is the soul of this wonderful place. For many people, the appeal of the monastery lies in this connection.
Ora
(pray)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
labora
(work)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
lege
(read)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
So that God may be glorified in everything
A place of prayer
The day in the monastery begins and ends with prayer. The first words of the day are the opening of the morning prayer: Lord, open my lips. The main part of the Liturgy of the Hours is the Psalms. The first psalm to be prayed every day is Psalm 95, which is particularly close to Benedict’s heart, which is why he quotes it specifically in the preface to his Rule: “Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (RB Prologue 10, cf. Ps 95, 7f.) This shows what should happen in prayer: hearing the word of God, receiving it with the whole heart and responding to it with the whole person.
We see our life in this spiritual place as an indication that God lives among us. We make the concerns and worries of the church and the world our own and bring them before God in prayer. We want to be open to the people who come to us, regardless of our monastic way of life.
The center of Maria Laach
The abbey church
The three-nave, double-choir pillar basilica with two transepts and six towers is the heart of the Maria Laach monastery complex and is considered one of the most beautiful and best-preserved Romanesque monuments in our country – in the tradition of the great Romanesque cathedrals in Speyer, Mainz and Worms in the Rhineland. The church is decoratively built from brown-yellow Laach tuff, white limestone from Lorraine and red Kylls sandstone. Later, gray tuff from the Eifel and basalt lava were also used. Special features include the underground crypt and the vestibule, the so-called “paradise”.
