Re-opening the Guest House

In the first half of the week, we took great delight in the last few days of "summer recess" as I like to call it. It is the few weeks in the year when our hospitality ministry is not active and the community can live in a more relaxed fashion to enjoy summer. This year, the weather has been fantastic with moderately warm days and less humidity.

Cut flowers from our garden have kept well with the moderate weather.

Quiet time to play "who moves toward the other first" (Br. Peter or Mouse, our cat?).

This Thursday, we re-opened our Guest House on Thursday. As every end of August, we welcomed a large group of EfM mentors gathering to further their own formation. Education for Ministry (EfM) is a four-year distance learning certificate program in theological education based upon small-group study and practice. We are glad to support EfM in that way.

An EfM group also meets at the monastery throughout the academic year. Brothers Josép and John are part of it. And a few of our brothers have completed the EfM four-year course in the past.

EfM local groups from New York State and New Jersey also regularly come on retreat at the monastery to reinforce their group dynamic and deepen their learning.

As usual, we also welcomed several individuals including "veterans" and "newbies." It's always nice to see habitual visitors coming back and it's a different pleasure to see new people introduced to Benedictine hospitality.

Our Associate Andrew Jones, an EfM mentor, would also qualify as a Monastery veteran.

The new visitors find out about us by word of mouth and through the internet. Our internet presence (web site, Facebook page, Instagram account, and blogs) is increasingly important to alert the public to our existence and ministries. It is both a means of evangelization and an economic necessity to support our ministry of hospitality which remains our main source of financial support. Br. Joseph Wallace-Williams is currently working with a couple of consultants to audit, review and revamp our internet assets. We are hoping to launch the new website in Advent. You may notice a few changes to our blogs and Facebook page already. More about all that in a future blog entry.

From Thursday to Saturday, we also had a video shooting crew from Fathom Studio at the Monastery. They also shot our earlier capital campaign video. They will also continue to provide graphic design for the remainder of our capital campaign. Expect to see their work in your email or physical mailbox this fall.

 Br. Joseph  and our old elevator "starring"

Chris Hoke at the camera, Jason Smith directing

One of our visitors this week was also an inquirer. Inquirers are men who want to look into monastic life as a possible vocation for themselves. After some correspondence indicates a suitable level of interest and commitment to the necessary discernment, we invite them to come and visit us a few times as a guest to get a "real life" feel for the monastery and its community. Often, if geography allows, an inquirer will visit us several times over his period of discernment. This may be a question of months or, more often, years. If you know someone who might be interested in inquiring about the monastic life, put him in touch with our Brother Aidan, who is our Vocations Minister.

The Brothers are always happy to see you visit the Monastery. Will you give yourself quality time with your Beloved God at the Monastery soon? We sure hope so.