Step 1: If you read our Q&A section , you know that we are open to new members. Interested men or women should be active Catholics, (& have been so for at least 2 years), between the ages of 21 and 45 who TRULY SEEK GOD. Benedict tests for this 3-ways: Does the applicant show zeal for humiliations, for obedience, and for the work of God" (prayer)? If the answer is "Yes," then there should be a "getting acquainted" period... via correspondence & a serious and careful reading of our book, Your Friendly Neighborhood Monks.

Step 2: If the desire to sell all and follow Jesus OUR WAY still persists, then one or two short visits over a 6-month period, interspersed with prayer and dialog would be scheduled. During this time, the applicant must be made acquainted with the special difficulties they will surely encounter in our life. At the end of this period, we search with the candidate for evidence that God is calling he or she to enter this community as a novice.

Step 3: The novitiate is a trial period, similar to an "engagement" prior to marriage. During this period, the candidate lives with us (not in our guest quarters), and follows our life pattern day by day, as we mutually try to discern if final promises are to be encouraged. This period may last from 1 to 3 years.

Step 4: is the actual taking of our three vows: Obedience, Stability and Conversion of Manners. The seriousness with which St. Benedict sees this act can be readily seen from the following two paragraphs from the Rule of St. Benedict.

CHAPTER 58 On the Manner of Receiving Brethren

"....Then, having deliberated with himself, if he promises to keep it in its entirety and to observe everything that is commanded him, let him be received into the community. But let him understand that, according to the law of the Rule, from that day forward he may not leave the monastery nor withdraw his neck from under the yoke of the Rule which he was free to refuse or to accept during that prolonged deliberation...... "If he has any property, let him either give it beforehand to the poor or by solemn donation bestow it on the monastery, reserving nothing at all for himself, as indeed he knows that from that day forward he will no longer have power even over his own body. At once, therefore in the oratory, let him be divested of his own clothes which he is wearing and dressed in the clothes of the monastery. But let the clothes of which he was divested be put aside in the wardrobe and kept there. Then if he should ever listen to the persuasions of the devil and decide to leave the monastery (which God forbid), he may be divested of the monastic clothes and cast out. His petition, however, which the Abbot has taken from the altar, shall not be returned to him, but shall be kept in the monastery."