Church of St. Gregory the Great, late afternoon

Over the past few weeks, I have had several people asking casually about the vocations outlook, both at Portsmouth Abbey and in the English Benedictine Congregation in general. At our August Oblate Day of Recollection, at the Boston Alumni Reception, at a recent event in St. Louis, at our School’s Reunion Weekend – and I suspect the same will hold true at the next Board of Regents meeting and Abbot’s Reception, in December in New York City. Inquiring minds want to know… And it is a process for which, as our community’s vocations director, I have a front row seat.

The modern vocations process employs the technologies of our day. Not too long ago, but pre-internet and pre-computer, a young man or woman feeling the call to a vocation might have sent a handwritten note or hand-typed letter of inquiry to a specific monastic house or convent, or to a diocesan seminary director. In my own case, as recently as 2004, I hand-delivered such a note, handwritten on Saint Meinrad Archabbey stationery found in my guest room there, but addressed to the abbot at Saint Louis Abbey. I had been visiting Benedictine monasteries while on business or personal trips, and experienced wonderful hospitality at houses stretching from my home state of Pennsylvania all the way to California, with visits to other monasteries in between, including Saint Meinrad in Indiana. My own humble vocational efforts bore fruit, and I was invited to begin my monastic career in St. Louis.

We have had quite a few vocational inquiries lately. While an in-person stay at a monastery obviously offers a better sense of a house’s atmosphere, charism, ministry and prayer life, there are also available a number of online resources where an inquirer can glean all sorts of information. It is now possible to fill out one inquiry form and have it transmitted to monasteries or convents throughout the U.S. Most inquiries we receive come through such channels. We print them out for our vocations binder, which makes it easier to jot down notes when speaking to a person over the phone. Requests may come from the father for his son, or recently, as a cold call from a man advocating for a friend who has no computer. The average age of the inquirers has risen from the former typical demographic of men in their twenties or thirties, usually college men or graduates, to men in their forties, fifties, even a few in their sixties. I will return their calls, usually in the evening after Compline, or Night Prayer. With the day almost over, the house is quieter, and generally the people I am calling are home from work. I have no empirical data to fall back on, (although I’m sure such surveys are being taken by someone, somewhere), but I get a feeling from these conversations that recent pandemic restrictions have played a large part in these men searching for something. Vocationally, it is key to make sure they are not running from something but rather running to something.

I seek to understand their state of mind in these calls. I suspect that a single man of a later age may not have a confidante with whom to share his ideas about a religious vocation. A roommate who splits the household expenses is probably not the best candidate to whom to open one’s heart. Even younger men may not be comfortable sharing deeply-held religious feelings or emotions with work buddies, especially after work on a Friday night on a bar stool. When I’m able to connect by phone, the conversations last for 45 minutes on average. I listen, they talk. Hearing the tales of having doors closed in their faces (their words) by other orders with strict age requirements can be heartbreaking. To be told at age 30 or 35 or 40 that they are “too old” is oftentimes enough to stop them in their tracks or slow them down in their search.

Eventually it comes out in conversation that I was 52 when I made my first inquiry, and you can almost hear an audible sigh of relief at the other end of the line. And, of course, they laugh a bit when they hear that I moved into the monastery on April 1, April Fool’s Day. It takes time to gain their trust, to encourage them to make a visit to check us out. It’s worth every minute on the phone. And we have had visitors, some who do plan to return, some who have visited several times. The stages from receiving initial inquiries, to having visitors, to discerning vocations are many, require much prayer, and continue, we hope, at God’s own pace.