Howton Grove Priory | Mobile WebsiteSharing a Vocation with the World . . .

RB 58

We complete our reading of Benedict's chapter on the admission of new community members today. I am struck, as always, by the uncomplicated way in which an understanding of human psychology is wedded to a spiritual purpose. The constant testing and probing of vocation, sometimes in ways the candidate might consider baffling ("the newcomer . . . should not be granted an easy entrance") or even contradictory (to keep someone hammering at the door for four or five days is not obviously welcoming), the frankness with which the difficulties of monastic life are to be pointed out, and the watchful care to be exercised by those responsible for the novice's formation, all show Benedict's seriousness of purpose: is this person truly seeking God? The programme the novice must follow is designed to lead to a mature and responsible decision, and there is no hiding the renunciations that will be involved ("henceforth he will have no power even over his own body"). But there is a wonderful warmth also. At profession the anonymous newcomer becomes "the new brother" and is united in prayer with the whole community. Sometimes in the joy and enthusiasm of hearing God's call for the first time the idea of being tested can seem alien, and many a monastic vocation has been lost in the humdrum of everyday life in the monastery. The point is, if we are seeking God we must go where he is to be found; that may well mean abandoning our own ideas of where he ought to be found. It may be in choir or our own cells that God awaits us, in the library or the garden, in the doctor's waiting room or at the kitchen sink. Where he is, we must be also.