Luke Anderson, O.Cist. (1927-2025)

Fr. Luke was the last monk of St. Mary's Monastery in New Ringgold, Pennsylvania (Diocese of Allentown). Google reviews claim that the "beautiful old monastery" has long been up for sale: "It has 17 bedrooms and a beautiful chapel on 12 1/2 acres." Fr. Luke was Prior and co-founder of St. Mary's, where four formerly Trappist monks had started anew around 1975. They had had differences of opinion about observance and liturgy at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Anderson had made his solemn profession in Spencer in 1953 and was ordained to the priesthood the year thereafter. 
The community at St. Mary's transferred to the Common Observance and attained the status of a priory of the Cistercian Order. They earned their livelihood first by making computer punch cards (long before the PC!). Later, they became tailors, making pants. Over the years, more than a dozen novices had entered St. Mary's, but none stayed. 
Fr. Luke passed away on 4 January 2025 at the age of 97, the last of the four founding confreres. Alfred Schlert, Bishop of Allentown, officiated at the requiem.
Anderson wrote a thesis at the Angelicum titled The concept of truth in the philosophy of William James (1965). He also had a master's degree from Princeton University. He served on the editorial board of the Cistercian Fathers Series from ca. 1970 and was also an editor of what was supposed to be the English translation of Bernard's collected works (a joint initiative of Cistercian Publications and Consortium Press in the early 1970s). He contributed "The Rhetorical Epistemology in Saint Bernard's Super Cantica" to the acclaimed collection titled Bernardus Magister in 1992. In 2005, he published The Image and Likeness of God in Bernard of Clairvaux's Free Choice and Grace, which he dedicated to St. Teresa of Calcutta, with whom he had worked on several occasions, holding workshops and giving retreats for the Missionaries of Charity. His retreats and conferences were especially popular; he was a regular retreat master at numerous monasteries and held countless university lectures.