Q & A

What Is My Vocation?
The word vocation means "calling," and usually God's call to us. All Christians have a vocation. Most Christians are called to marriage and others to the single life, still others are called to be priests, brothers, or sisters. All Christians are called by God to holiness and to advance the Kingdom of God in the world. The best vocation is the one that feels right and conforms most to God's will for you. What is important is that you can truly say, "Thy will be done," and mean it.

Why not consider the monastic path?
We feel that to live our life skillfully it is important that one be in reasonably good physical, mental and spiritual health. To embark on this life-giving journey we would want you to have what it takes to grow in interdependence as well as to be unmarried, Catholic, free of obligations arising from the needs of family members or previous marriages, or from debt. You would need to have enough emotional maturity to accept the challenges of community living.

What is the process of becoming a monk of this community?
The process consists of 3 stages:

  1. Exploring and gathering information about our life through contact with the vocation directorl.
  2. Should you and our vocation director consider the matter worth pursuing, we would invite you to come for a visit. During your time with us you would pray, work, eat and interact with the monks. This would give you a sense of what our community is like. We feel that you would find that prayer and quiet pondering would order the tone of your initial visit. Should you and the vocation director agree that you might possibly be called to this community, more serious discernment would then be indicated. At this point, you would be invited to visit with a few monks to talk the matter over with them in a climate of mutual respect.
  3. After these conversations should you and these monks conclude the matter might be worth pursuing further, you would be invited to live inside the monastery. During these two months, you would live the full life of the monk.

What happens after the Observership visit?
At the end of the live-in period of the Observership, if further exploration is desired, you would then go away for a while to pray over your experience. If, in that time, you were to feel a sense of belonging - or "rightness" - as regards our life, you would be welcomed to request admission to the postulancy. Then the Formation begins.

Is the Cistercian Monastic Life for you? See VIDEO

Catholic Vocation Podcast

Listen to an interview of Br Michael Lautieri the Vocation Director speaking about the monastic life and the discernment process.

For more reading, see Conferences