The Monastic Life: Details

Why monks? In every age, God has raised up men and women who hear Christ's call to discipleship, and respond in a radical way, leaving the comfort of friends and family to dedicate themselves completely to the Lord. The radical nature of this way of life finds a sympathetic echo in the human heart, which is "restless until it rests it Thee", as St. Augustine put it. When the Lord Jesus walked this earth, disciples gathered round him who wanted to be with him, remain with him, abide with him – forever. The monk longs to follow the Lord in the same way.

Who is eligible? Men from ages 20-40 years old, practicing their Catholic faith, docile to the Holy Spirit, and willing to take up the strong bright weapons of obedience in order to follow Christ our true King.

How does one become a monk? There are various stages:

1. Getting acquainted: a young man comes to experience our way of life, he visits the community a number of times. Many of our candidates come from our summer vocation discernment program.
2. Postulancy: the period of postulancy is quite flexible, adapted to the person's needs. The purpose of this period is for the candidate to experience the monastic life in an informal way before making the formal step of becoming a novice.
3. Novitiate: a one-year period of intense formation in human virtue and the monastic life. Topics of study include monastic history, monastic literature (selections from the Great Books of the monastic tradition) the Holy Rule, the psalms, chant and Latin. The real test is whether a man is willing to change his way of life and to convert his heart, whether he can live in community, whether he has the human maturity necessary for this way of life.
4. Juniorate: three years of temporary profession, during which a young monk gradually assumes more responsibility in the community. It is during this time that a monk may begin studies for the priesthood if he is so called.
5. Solemn vows.

Monastic Priesthood
The monastic tradition has responded to the priesthood in different ways at different times.

In the 4th century desert tradition, monks tended to avoid the priesthood, because it was considered too sublime, too high of a calling for a lowly monk, and thus a temptation against humility.

St. Benedict introduced something new into the tradition: he speaks about having monks ordained in order to serve the sacramental and liturgical needs of the community, provided that they remain good and humble monks and don't put on airs because of their priesthood!

With the passing of the centuries, it became common practice for more and more monks to be ordained until at a certain point, Church law required that all monks be ordained; the non-ordained were called lay brothers.

After the Second Vatican Council, the canonical distinction between choir monks and lay brothers was abolished.

Nowadays, the criteria for monastic priesthood are basically two:

1. does this particular monk have a calling to the priesthood?
2. does the community need priests for sacramental ministry within the monastery, for ministry to guests, for the apostolic works of the community?