By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

Nine year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was gunned down on Saturday in the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will be laid to rest today in a casket specially made by Trappist monks.

CNN is reporting that the casket was made at the family’s request by monks of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, known as Trappists, at New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa. 

Made by hand especially for Christina, the casket is carved out of red oak grown in the forests surrounding the Abbey. Her name is inscribed on the lid along with her date of birth and death, and a cross. In addition, the family will receive five small keepsake crosses hewn from the same wood as the casket. Before being sent to Tucson yesterday, it was blessed by the monks.

A family representative explained to CNN that the Greens specifically reached out to the monks for the casket.

 “Our caskets are made by hand. They’re very slowly made. They’re made by monks,” said  Sam Mulgrew, general manager of Trappist caskets to the Associated Pres (AP).  “They don’t make caskets the way we make them anymore.”

The casket was donated to the family, which the monks often do for children’s caskets, and have established a special “child casket fund” for that purpose that people can donate to.

“They are opposed to profiting from it so they prefer to donate the caskets,” Mulgrew said.

For the last 160 years, the monks subsisted through farming in Iowa, but had to give that up last year. Caskets are now their main business.

“This is good work. They are cloistered monks. It’s a work of mercy for them and it’s meaningful for them,” Mulgrew said.

“Along with prayer and study, our casket ministry is an extension of our sacred work,” says a statement on the monks’ website. “We labor quietly with our hands in support of our life of simplicity.”

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