he story of how Anne Serna of Greenwich, Connecticut became Mother Abbess David Serna, O.S.B. is inextricably bound up with the story of the becoming of Regina Laudis itself, for to an extraordinary degree she helped to form the community that formed her. Having graduated from the College of New Rochelle
with a major in Sociology in 1956, she entered Regina Laudis three years later, just a little more than ten years after the monastery was founded. Mother David was predilected at an early age to assume a
position of responsibility in relation to the foundress, Reverend Mother Benedict, and earned a place of trust and love in the heart of the community that she has held ever since. She made Perpetual Vows and received the Rite of Consecration in 1965. In 1967 Mother David was appointed the first Subprioress of Regina Laudis by Mother Benedict, who was then Prioress. Mother David retained that position until 1976 when the monastery was elevated to the rank of an Abbey. Then, upon becoming first Abbess of Regina Laudis, and assuming the title Lady Abbess, Mother Benedict appointed Mother David Prioress.

 
n the meantime, Mother David
was more than busy. From 1971 until her election as Abbesss, Mother David was Cellarer of the Abbey, responsible for the maintenance of the property of the Abbey and daily well-being of the community. She brought to this daunting obligation her practical wisdom and organizational skills motivated by a ready compassion for anyone in need. These gifts had been

honed through her previous professional training as a social worker at the New York Foundling Hospital and through a year spent in Puerto Rico teaching English and imbibing another culture. Master of
St. Benedict’s admonition to the Cellarer never to be without a “good word,” she graciously served the community through the years of growth when the community expanded from one main building to a complex of 400 acres and a host of residences and farm buildings.

 
n addition to caring for the material development of the monastery, Mother David was instrumental in forming the first generation of American women for Regina Laudis and building the community structures to sustain the radical new vocations of a post-Vatican II Church. In 1972 she was named Dean of Formation

and, in complement with the Dean of Education, Mother Dolores Hart, O.S.B., strove to bring forth an innovative approach to monastic formation based in the wholeness of the human person. The vitality of the present community of 40 women bears witness to the fruit of their pioneering labor. Through all the many vicissitudes of the Abbey’s eventful history Mother David has been there, acting as “shock absorber,” unshakable in her fidelity to the call of St. Benedict and to the vision of our foundress. The community is particularly indebted to her for her steady hand as administrator of the community from 1994 until she was elected abbess on January 25, 2001.

 
he stability of her being is nowhere more apparent or appreciated than in her dedication to the prayer of the Divine Office and the Gregorian Chant. Gifted with a superb voice and director of three choirs before entering the Abbey, she has tirelessly helped to develop the Abbey choir as an ensemble made from the distinctive sound of individual voices. This work of building a choir dedicated to the praise of God, and a community that can work together as one body, has flowered under her guidance in the accomplishment of three Women in Chant compact discs as well as the production of A Gregorian Chant Master Class. Even from these brief reflections it is clear
that the Holy Spirit led Mother David to Regina Laudis andprepared her from the beginning to take her place as abbess. Child of a Peruvian father (Lucas Serna) of mixed Indian and Spanish blood and an English mother, (Anne Catherine Finnerty of Jarrow on Tyne, Newcastle, England), she embodies within her very genealogy the realization of the vision of establishing a genuine expression of European monastic life rooted in the American soil and spirit.