Did we just join a monastery?

Have you ever gone to a place you’ve never been and realized that it’s about to become somewhere very meaningful to you?

Italy was like that for me, especially Florence.

I remember walking around the city, feeling distinctly like I had been there before and that I had come home. That happened again, even more powerfully, when I stepped inside Convento San Francesco, a Tuscany monastery built in 1212 by St. Francis of Assisi and his followers.

The same was true for Mount Angel Abbey.

Not long after my husband moved back home, he sent me on a retreat. After months and months of dedicating most of my energy to spiritual growth and praying for the restoration of our marriage, I was EXHAUSTED.

As we were talking about where I should go, he brought up Mount Angel Abbey, a place that he’d actually heard about and mentioned years ago, but I’d never looked into. I checked out the website and agreed that it would be a great place to go so he booked me two nights there.

I was immediately struck by its beauty and was filled with gratitude as I took in the campus and its surroundings.

When I got to my room, I chuckled because of course I had been placed in the St. Francis of Assisi room. (I was told at check in that there had been a mistake and I was supposed to be in a different room.)

As I wandered around the grounds on the first day of my retreat, a question kept going through my mind, “What do I do with my days?” I had been feeling lost and not sure how to proceed in this new stage of life - how was the everyday mundane important to my purpose?

The next day, when I sat down in the coffee shop, the question was still on my mind when I pulled out my notebook. As I prayed about it, I distinctly heard five words:

1. Stillness

2. Connection

3. Purpose

4. Growth

5. Movement

Of course. If those were my daily aims, not only would I feel fulfilled in my days, but they would help me in living out my overall mission in life. They were also directly aligned with my top values.

Later, at dinner, I was talking to the woman beside me who told me she was an oblate. That caught everyone’s attention and someone at the table asked what an oblate is.

An oblate is a layperson who affiliates with a monastic community and makes a private promise to live according to the values of the Rule of Saint Benedict in their daily lives, though they do not live in the monastery or make public vows.

After explaining what it was she told us that she centers her days around five main things, as laid out in the Rule:

1. Opus Dei (The Work of God), also known as praying the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours

2. Work

3. Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)

4. Rest and Meals

5. Community Life

I shared with everyone what I had been praying about and the five words I had heard, and she said, “It sounds like you may need to be an oblate.”

Absolutely, yes.

When I got home, I sent an email requesting more information, and when I got it, I was immediately overwhelmed. It turns out that praying the Daily Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours, takes a long time. I tried it a few times and stopped. Same with Lectio Divina.

Frustrated, I set the idea of becoming an oblate aside. Perhaps I was just caught up in the energy of the place and it wasn’t really the direction I needed to go.

And then, in August, I was listening to a podcast with a man who was a Benedictine oblate, and I felt God say, “So … you ready to do that now?”

Taking that as a very clear nudge, I booked a spot for the September oblate retreat at Mount Angel Abbey as a commuter, as all the guesthouse rooms were booked, and asked to be put on a waitlist for a room in case of a cancellation. I then began incorporating the Divine Office and Lectio Divina into my days.

But little bits this time.

When I invited Ian to go to the retreat with me, he laughed it off. I immediately began praying that he’d have a change of heart. (Sorry, not sorry.)

Then, a week or so before the retreat I asked if he’d like to try to get the Sunday of that weekend off from work and stay at the AirBnB with me and just hunt while I was at the retreat. He said he’d try.

The retreat started on Friday and he got word on Wednesday that he’d gotten Sunday off.

Then, on Thursday at 2:25 pm, with 35 minutes left to cancel my AirBnb with a full refund, I got a voicemail saying there was a cancellation and would I like to stay at the Abbey guesthouse for the retreat?

I was both excited and bummed.

Excited at the answered prayer and perfect Divine timing. Bummed because I was looking forward to spending some time with Ian that weekend, even if it was just sleeping at the same place together.

When I told him about the room he said, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to spoon in a twin bed.” “No,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you’ll have to go to the retreat if you stay there. And I don’t know if they have a big enough room.”

“Well, I guess if they have a big enough room, it just means that I need to go on this retreat, too,” he replied.

So we became oblate novitiates on Sunday. Because of course there was a big enough room and he admitted that he’d been feeling like he was supposed to go, too.

That means that for the next year, we’ll be incorporating the Rule into our daily lives, and discerning if we really want to make the final oblation to the Abbey - a lifelong commitment.

What’s that going to look like exactly? I’m really not sure. But I’m going to write about it.

Welcome to the journey.