“ What do you seek?” “ The mercy of God, and the fellowship of this community.” The novice, after experiencing the way of life in the monastery for a year, comes before the community and the abbot to request admission to first vows. The abbot asks him that question, “ What do you seek?” So the vowed life together is a solidarity of brothers seeking to prefer the love of Christ before all else. By the monastic vows we seek to live as Jesus lived, in union with his heavenly Father, and to be a city on a hill in the Kingdom of God. We seek to live as memb ers of the Body of Christ and so bring the healing of Jesus to a fractured world. Our fraternal life, as a special family in Christ , is a shared journey in which all monks seek to suppor t the vocation of one another. Within this life Benedictine monks profess vows of Stability, conversatio morum, and Obedience. Through th ese vows we live the evangelical counsels of pover ty, chastity, and obedience modeled by Jesus Christ . As Pope St . John Paul II taught in Vita C onsecrata, “the consecrated life is a living memorial of Jesus’ way of living and acting , a re-enactment in the Church of the way of life which Jesus embraced and proposed to his disciples.”
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S t. B e n e d i c t ’ s A b b e y
Benedictine monks become members of the Order by professing stability to a par ticular monastery. Stability makes St . Benedict’s Abbey our permanent home, effectively planting our roots here. This vow is unique to Benedictine monks and it is an essential par t of our charism. For us, stability is a freeing vow — we cannot be transferred to a new province or house, but we vow to be a member of this community for life. It is at St . Benedict’s Abbey that we make our monastic profession, it is here that we seek God in our life of prayer and work, and it is here that our mor tal remains will be committed to the ear th. We may be called away on various assignments, but this abbey is our spiritual home forever. We promise to live here and serve under an abbot , running on the “road that leads to salvation (RB Prologue, 48) unto death.” Stability has a twofold dimension; one of making a par ticular community one’s own and the other of having a stability of hear t that embraces this place as our home and this way of life as our destiny. The crucifix (below) stands firm in our cemetery – reminding us that we are rooted in Christ in this place, and it is with Christ that we hope to rest in eternity.
