Leinau balsam

Lavender oil and ground lavender blossoms are processed for this nurturing skin ointment. You can use it on dry skin or for aromatherapy. It’s good to use before going to bed because lavender is known for its slumber-inducing fragrance.

These variants of a balm for application to the skin come from the Abbey of St. Severin. The recipe for their preparation is extraordinarily straightforward: The monks add olive oil to pure beeswax. The result is a natural and well-tolerated ointment base.

The abbey of St. Severin relocated in the spring of 2010, and the three religious have been living since then in the former German army radar school on the sunny (and sometimes cloudy) highland overlooking Kaufbeuren in the Bavarian Alps. They had vacated their previous quarters in Leinau when the property changed hands. The abbey monks belong to the ecumenical Port Royal Cistercian order. In the 17th century, the name stood for a pious movement related to Jansenism. Buffeted between fundamental ideas and a special conception of deeds on the one hand and the confessions on the other this spiritual bark never went under and was reestablished as a monastery in 1946. Perhaps it’s symbolic that the bark has found a new haven in a place under a radar installation where navigation training (with the aid of radar) took place. The monks earn their keep by giving spiritual instructions and by producing soap and other personal care products. This is a kind of work that is especially appropriate for monastic seclusion because it does without large-scale machinery and equipment while it requires concentration and a love of detail.