Monastic Vocation - Continued

To me, I think one of the biggest indications that one has a monastic vocation is a love of the Liturgy of the Hours (aka:Divine Office, Prayer of the Church, and Breviary). If I had been more "on the ball" I think I would have realised my monastic vocation much earlier in life. I think that the Liturgy of the Hours is a wonderful way to worship our Lord. As the Psalms open up to you, you can see them on so many different levels. You may see it as King David crying out to the Lord in time of need; you may see yourself crying out to the Lord in time of need; or you may see Jesus talking to you; the same Psalm may hit you a different way. And all of these are valid ways of viewing the Psalm.

I actually did not know about the Liturgy of the Hours before I went to seminary at Oscott College. It was there that I discovered it, and there that I began to treasure this way of praying. If you are unfamiliar with the Liturgy of the Hours you might want to check to see if there is a monastery, religious community, or even parish that prays it near by. The Liturgy of the Hours can appear in numerous forms. If you do not like it at one place check another. Some communities have it in Latin - if you do not understand Latin you may not like it or you might still appreciate the beauty. The American translation is a bit dry in my opinion. I have seen "politically correct" breviaries - one can take that as they will. Also the Roman Breviary take the 150 Psalms over a 4-week period, some communities take the Psalms over two week and some in just one week.

What ever your vocation is, this way of prayer is open to all Christians: married, single, younger, older, priest, lay-person - Everyone. But if you are looking to celebrate the complete Liturgy of the Hours everyday, you may just be called to a monastery.

Getting on track

May 20th

I am still trying to get used to the schedule around here. Today I was an early-bird, even by Carthusian standards. But I was able to attend all of the “Hours” today. The manual labour today had two typically novitiate tasks. The morning job was folding the guest house linens with the novice. After folding the bed sheets in quarters, then in half; we placed them in to a giant airing cupboard with four roll-out sections: each 7 feet tall. There are 3 radiators in the cupboard that dry the sheets. After the Office of None I received my afternoon assignment. At first I thought the Novice Master asked me if I wanted to to some reading. Knowing that I could not get off that easily I asked, “Weeding?”. “Yes,” was the response. Well at least it was a beautiful spring afternoon for it.

I decided today that I will not even ask the Lord’s assistance in my decision-making process until next week. I still want to see the abbey at face-value. I was asked to day if the abbey was meeting my expectations. I told the elder monk that I deliberately held no expectations. I said I do not want to shape the abbey into a preconceived image, I want to experience it as it is, and let it shape me.

May 21st

Sleep is fairly on track now. I am actually surprised at my level of alertness at 3:30 in the morning. I went to the novitiate class room today. We watched a video on the 40th anniversary of Mount St. Bernard’s foundation in Cameroon. It was interesting to see “living” history. A couple of the founders had passed since this video was made 4 years ago. Then more weeding. And in keeping with the theme, I did some mowing in the afternoon with a mower that is quite a bit heavier than the one I have at home. I went along at the speed I mow at home. The result being I finished too early and I was sore. I guess there is a reason why the monastic pace seems slow, but is actually wise. Tim, the cat took pity on me today and made nice. Once I referred to this ginger tom as a “lion,” he came up to me with out fear. He was a little playful (and cheeky, too).

A nice hot bath after Compline, a bit of spiritual reading, and bed!

Back on the 'Island"

I am back home from my visit to Mount St. Bernard's. I kept a bit of a journal, and I wrote a little something almost every day of my two-week visit. I will start posting a couple entries at a time. I am not going to edit the entries so that you may see how my view point develops over the days:

May 18th

I was picked up at Nottingham Station by a friend of mine that I had not seen since his ordination 10 years ago. At that time we had both lost our fathers, now both our mothers have passed , too. We had a pleasant chat and arranged to meet each other after my retreat.

I received a very warm welcome from Br. Paul. He made some tea and we had a little talk. After the Office of Sext, Br. Clement, a novice, gave me the grand tour. He did his best to show me how the books for the Liturgy of the Hours worked together, too: The Psalter, Antiphonal, and Hymnal . He also taught me the three most common signs of the Cistercian Sign Language: Thank You, Sorry, and Joyful. Thank you is similar to the American Sign Language sign, Sorry is a couple mea culpas, and a was greeted with outstretched arms and a big smile. That can means, Happy Feast Day, or Welcome, or any Joyful Greeting. I received that greeting quite a few times.

It is a little past 8 PM and still quite sunny. But 3:15 AM comes early, so it is bedtime.

May 19th

I woke up way too early today - hours before Vigils. I was supposed to sleep in today, too. Hearing the church bells as they rang for Vigils at 3:25 sounded quite lovely. An hour later the first birds began to chirp. I am slowly getting the hang off the books of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Psalter is on a one-week cycle, the antiphonal is on a two-week cycle, and things are a little more complex since this is the Easter season.

I am meeting more of the community but it is not always easy remembering all the names. I spoke with a brother in temporary vows. He was telling me that he attended a lecture from a Benedictine sister from Chicago. Later in the conversation he told me that he had looked at the Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, too, as part of his discernment process.

I did get an unfriendly greeting today from Tim, the abbey’s cat. He hissed at me; but being a good Trappist cat, he made no sound as he hissed.

Spoiled for Choice

I received a very nice email today. In the I was asked how I narrowed down my decision to two communities, especially when they were not in the same order. I responded to his email. And then I thought that maybe other people would like to know how I got to where I am in my discernment.

With the sheer volume of choices in religious life one truly can feel spoiled for choice. One needs to itemize what is personally important. I itemized the characteristics of cenobitic communities that are important to me in the following manner:

1. A Community Loyal to the Church
   
2. Where the full Liturgy of the Hours are prayed most of them in common.
   
3. Where the "Christian Prayer" version of the Liturgy of the Hours is not used.
   
4. No completely external apostolates. eg, some monasteries have parishes many miles from their location.
5. A place where people are basically happy.
6. A place where liturgy is celebrated worthily.

I have visited communities where belly-aching about the church is the norm. I was even at one where our late Pope John Paul II was referred to with an expletive and an ethnic slur. When there are real issues about the church, there needs to be a clear and open forum where things can be discussed. When people just want to flex their moaning-muscles... I have better things to do.

Some people like me want to pray the entire office, but not everyone wants to pray it in common. One needs to decide if the office in common is important to you.

I freely admit #3 is my prejudice. I have prayed the British translation for many years, and I think the American translation is a wee bit bland.

When I first started looking at monastic life I noticed that some had far flung parishes or other apostolates. This conflicts with my desire to pray the office in common.

I also admit that #5 & #6 are quite subjective.

All of this being said, I realize that every single day can be put in to my carefully constructed box. For instance, one may have duties that take them well outside of the monastery. But these are general guidelines. I know that if I were uncomfortable with the liturgy, life would be difficult. I am also not saying this is how all cenobitic life should be, but communities that have these characteristics in their life are attractive to me.

If there is anybody reading this already in a monastic community, I would enjoy hearing from you on what I wrote. Not that I do not look forward to anyone who chooses to comment.

Back Home

I am back home after a four well-spent days up at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey in Sparta, Wisconsin. I even met two fellow bloggers while I was there. I knew Brother Stephen was up at the abbey. He writes Sub Tuum; but to my most pleasant surprise, I met Sr. Roberta from the Valley of Our Lady Monastery who writes Running with the Lord.

My biggest surprise was how nature was so co-operative on this visit. Lauds was in-sync with the sunrise and Vespers was in-sync with sunset. That is the ideal time that one strives for, but I have never seen it so spot-on: especially with both offices. It struck a cord in me to such a point that I was inspired to write the two hymns in my previous post. While I have no delusions that they are "high art," it was the first time in 17 years that I was able to write any verse.

I was give another grace while I was there. A small but significant one. During Lauds on Wednesday we were on our knees praying The Lord's Prayer in Latin when I realized that I was praying it in Latin. I was not translating the prayer from English to Latin. I was not merely repeating Latin words that I had previously learned. I was praying and thinking in this ancient language without any disconnect.

If you are a man (especially in North America, but I would not think exclusively) trying to discern his vocation and think monastic life might be for you, you should give Spring Bank Abbey a look. They are truly a "What You See is What You Get" place. It is a place that promotes a life of Prayer, work, and study. And while I find everyone there quite intelligent, they are not of the aloof, condescending, some-what intimidating type. They show an open-hearted, sharing type of intelligence. All of the intelligence, none of the arrogance.

Why a Monk? Why a Cistercian Monastery?

When people hear that I am planning to be a monk - and stop laughing when they realize I am serious- the next question is usually something like "Why?" or "Are things that bad?" Some people think a monastery is a place where one flees to escape problems. Geesh, What a dreadful place monasteries would be if they were filled with problem-ridden escapist. The monks that I have met tend to be normal, happy people.

I began to think about religious life while I was in seminary. I liked when we celebrated the Liturgy of the Hours in common. I realized that this would be gone after ordination. That is when the search for the right community began. As I looked around I had the mind-set of an idealist and judged the communities against these ideals. Probably my biggest confusion as respects to my vocation was how to balance my religious life with my secular life. There a lot of clues in my life that the answer to this was that, for me, there is no balance. It just took me a long time to come to that realization. For example, in the seminary I always wondered why we went on holiday at Christmas. One community I was with puzzled me by reducing the liturgy on solemnities. Some communities suffer from the same malady most people in our culture suffer; namely, that what they do is more important than who they are. I only just recognized that my vocation had suffered from that, too.

This past summer all of the pieces fell together. I was looking for a community where prayer was the first priority. In my secular job, work often interrupted prayer. I want a life where prayer interrupts work. The idea of dropping what I am doing and hurrying to prayer as Vox Dei peels is very attractive to me now. I like the Cistercian way of life because of the balance of work and prayer. And the Liturgy of the Hours is the pulse of the monastic day. The beginning and end of the day is framed by this liturgy. The beginning and end of work and study periods are framed by this liturgy.

Cistercian life tries to strip away that which is not essential. This is the case in work, prayer, liturgy, and even architecture. That is how it was at the end of the 11th Century; this is how it is at the beginning of the 21st Century. With so much fluff and excess in modern life Cîteaux stands out like a beacon, showing a clear path to a safe harbor.

The Liturgy at Mount St. Bernard's Abbey

With the exception of Vigils, church services were fairly well attended by retreatants and day-visitors. Daily Mass with Terce had the best attendance, but from Lauds to Compline there were at least 15 people besides the community. Attendance at Mass was more like 40.


The abbey uses the Grail Translation of the psalms. This is the translation with which I have the most familiarity... and affection. I learned about the Liturgy of the Hours at Oscott College when I was a student for the Archdiocese of Birmingham. In the British Edition of the Roman Breviary care was taken to retain the poetical/lyrical nature of the psalms, canticles, and even some of the prayers. When praying with some of the other additions, I was taken aback by some more blunt translations. One politically "corrected" edition was just horrible. I prefer biblically correct translations over politically correct translations anyday, no matter how blunt.

During the rest of the day, as I was reading or walking the grounds and surrounding area, the chanting of the psalms would just re-play in my memory. As I stated above, I do have an affection for the Grail Translation. The psalms are like old friends. They stay with me after the liturgy. Sometimes, despite years of saying the same psalms over and over, a new dimension appears to me. The most amazing thing to me about the psalms is how they speak to the age in which they were written, they speak to us about Christ, and they speak to us about our lives today.

Liturgy of the Hours at Mount St. Bernard's

At Mount St. Bernard's the full Liturgy of the Hours is celebrated in English. Vigils is at 3:30 AM and lasts about an hour. following that is a votive mass to Our Lady. The mass is Novus Ordo, in English and ad orientem. The mass is celebrated in the Lady Chapel within the cloister. I was across the main sanctuary in the St. Joseph Chapel. The St. Joseph Chapel is the only part of the church open to the public at that time. Usually I was not the only retreatant at Vigils(to my surprise).

Vigils is the longest office in the Liturgy of the hours. Along with the psalms, there are two long readings: one from scripture and one from fathers of the church or some hagiography. This is some times called the Office of Readings.

The next office is Lauds at 6 AM. Community Mass and Terce are at 8 AM, None is at 12:15 PM, Sext is at 2:45 PM, Vespers is at 5:30 PM, and the final office of the day, Compline is at 7:30 PM

All of the Offices are chanted and well attended by retreatants, visitors, and neighbors. Many of the people in the public section of the church chant along softly with the monks. Some people prefer that the offices be chanted in Latin. But when the office is in English it is more accessible to the faithul. That is not to say I do not appreciate Gregorian Chant or Latin. I am quite fortunate to have recieved a wonderful education at Quigley North in Chicago which included four years of Latin.