As the participants in our Monastic Immersion Weekend joined the monks in choir this morning I think we all had the same immediate thought: ‘oh that we had 23 men in choir again!’ Our community is small so our Monastic Immersion Weekend participants were a wonderful addition for Vigils and Lauds this morning.
The MIW is progessing nicely and after having choir practice with Fr. James this morning to make sure we didn’t sing tone 8 when the community was using tone 3, we did quite well, according to the community. We also had a terrific conference with Br. Efrain on the history of the Rule of St. Benedict. He was so good we ran out of time with the MIW group frustrated not to be able to ask him 100 more questions.
After Mid-day prayer Fr. James will speak on the Rule of St. Benedict as “a way for all Christians,” and then we will have two different sessions. One will be for the six men discerning a monastic vocation with Br. Efrain. That meeting will take place in the novitiate, a place almost no one outside of monks gets to see. The rest of the group will meet with the Companion in the Chapter room (another place not open to the public) to discuss how we can use what we are experiencing here in our daily prayer life.
Please continue to pray for the men participating in the Monastic Immersion Weekend and for our community at Our Lady of the Holy Cross.
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