Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey - Albuquerque

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I recently participated in daily prayers and attended morning Mass at the Santa Maria de la Vid Church with the Norbertines in Southwest Albuquerque. The Norbertines have established the Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey on a 70 acre parcel of land off South Coors Blvd, on a mesa overlooking the Rio Grande with a magnificent view of the Sandia Mountains. There they have built a chapel, a communal and residential center, a theology library, private hermitages for retreats, prayer chapels for meditation and a trail system.  The Norbertine Abbey in Albuquerque was established in 1985 as the pioneer Norbertine community in the American Southwest. A small group of Norbertine priests and brothers, including Rev. Joel Garner, the current Abbott of the New Mexico Norbertines, relocated from their Abbey in Green Bay, Wisconsin  with the purpose of serving the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, particularly the Hispanic immigrant community and wherever they were most needed. They have served as ministers to the neighboring Holy Rosary Church which is an immigrant rich parish, have been chaplains at Presbyterian Hospital and have worked in prison ministry. They have taught at Saint Pius High School, have established a Master's of Theology curriculum thru their own resource center and in collaboration with Norbertine College in Wisconsin, have initiated ecumenical conferences, and offer spiritual retreats. Notwithstanding these commitments, they live a prayerful, relatively quiet and contemplative life within their Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey.
The Abbey itself is a contemporary Southwestern exposition of the Catholic faith. Outwardly the
entire complex has the appearance of a high desert pueblo with  walls curving into the desert landscape surrounded by colorful desert shrubs and vegetation. The Santa Maria de la Vid Chapel occupies the center of the building complex and is designated by a large cross ascending from the roof into the South Valley skyline. The chapel is approached from the parking lot by walking along a portal with an overhanging grape vine and past the earth-red painted library on the right. There are 2 large but simply designed bells hanging in an arch to the right of the Church doors. The larger bell is rung to welcome Norbertines and visitors for weekday services and both bells are rung on Sundays.
  Entering the chapel building, there is a gathering space with a large fountain rock in the middle, a reminder of our baptism as Christians. To the left of this rock is a life size statue of the pregnant Mary - Saint Mary of the Vine- at the time of her "Magnificat " to her pregnant cousin Elizabeth. A single long line of brown bricks leads from the water rock to the chapel where a white stucco wall with an icon of Mary and the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost creates  an exterior kiva wall for the worship space. The interior chapel is outlined by a floor cross of brown bricks and chairs are situated circumferential around the cross creating an oval ring with the wood altar at its center. There are wooden arches reaching from either side of the chapel towards a high ceiling skylight. Colored banners drape from these arches presumably to reflect light from the overhead cross bearing skylight and from multicolored small plate glass windows on either wall. The natural light and the colored windows suffuse the chapel with majestic New Mexico colors at both sunrise and sunset. Native American pottery and a Navajo blanket line a shelf above the stucco kiva wall and are a gesture to the original inhabitants of this land and enhance the interior Southwestern design of the chapel.

                                                                                                                                                             

 After morning prayers and mass I walked to the Chapel of the Baptist, a rustic adobe chapel set apart on the North side of the Abbey and housing the Blessed Sacrament. The isolation of this Chapel amid the desert sage and its Southwestern simplicity made it an ideal setting for prayer and meditation. The stark beauty of the surrounding high desert is a reminder of the wonder of God's creation. It calls us to leave the sprawl and congestion of the city, to rest awhile and to meditate on our Creator. The wide open spaces and vistas, the solace and solitude, help to facilitate our search for God, who is always nearby.

I encourage Catholic pilgrims to visit the Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey. Reserve a hermitage, prepare to live simply during your stay and experience a respite of Southwestern desert spirtituality.

For more information on the Norbertine Abbey in Albuquerque, click on

Welcome to the Norbertine Community of New Mexico!

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