The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is a Catholic monastery in the United States near Bardstown, Kentucky, in Nelson County.

Founded on December 21, 1848, and raised to an abbey in 1851, Gethsemani is considered to be the motherhouse of all Trappist and Trappistine monasteries in the United States.

[citation needed] Following the Rule of Saint Benedict, the Trappist monks live a contemplative life of faithful prayer and work.

The monks support themselves and the abbey through its store, Gethsemani Farms, offering handmade fruitcake and bourbon fudge (both onsite and by mail order).

In September 1805, French Trappists from the Abbey of La Valsainte in Switzerland traveled from Pennsylvania to Louisville, Kentucky.

From Louisville, they traveled south to the area of Bardstown to meet with Stephen Badin, the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States.

[2] Four decades later, in 1847, Dom Maxime, abbot of the Abbey of Melleray in France, sent two monks to Kentucky to find a tract of land on which the order could build a monastery.

Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget in Louisville greeted the pair and guided them to Nelson County, to a tract of land owned by the Sisters of Loretto that was called Gethsemani where the previous community of Trappists had lived.

It was a timely departure as France was verging toward a revolution inspired by socialism and rising secularism had made the environment hostile toward the church.

They journeyed up the Mississippi River on the Martha Washington, a steamboat, and arrived at Gethsemani on 21 December, celebrating Mass for Christmas a few days later.

[6] With Proust having been installed as abbot the previous year, plans for construction of the three-storey monastery finally began in October 1852—to be designed by the architect William Keely.

[5][8] Benedict Berger was installed as the next abbot, just after the American Civil War had commenced on April 19, 1861, though he had been leading the community since January of that year.

He was equally remembered for his generosity and kindness to soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, accepting them in the abbey to provide nourishment, horses and/or distilled spirits.

On May 1, 1864, the abbey opened their church in the public wing of their basilica to the general community, and France sent a priest by the name of Jerome Moyen to lead them.

[9] On November 15, 1866, Gethsemani's abbatial church was consecrated by Archbishop Purcell of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, assisted by the bishops of Louisville and Buffalo.

In 1875 he entered La Trappe, and later served as secretary to Procurators General François-Régis Martrin-Donos (1808–1880) and Stanislaus White (1838–1911), working in Rome until 1892.

The 40-odd monks who make up the community mingle with visitors and leave the monastery grounds for medical appointments and business concerning the abbey.

Today, in keeping with the observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, the monks of Gethsemani raise money for the monastery by producing fruitcake and fudge; they also collect royalties received from sales of Thomas Merton's books.

The months of November and December are particularly busy for Gethsemani Farms, with the monks receiving and filling large orders for the holiday season.

For the week of July 22–27, 1996, The Abbey of Gethsemani played host to its first groundbreaking dialogue between monastics of various Catholic and Buddhist orders.

The idea to establish such a connection between them first came about at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993, when Julian von Duerbeck and Wayne Teasdale asked the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID) to host an interfaith dialogue between Buddhists and Catholics; MID accepted, and that morning they held a meeting at the Parliament.