Entering a monastery means entrusting the question one carries to a Rule, to time and to a community. A vocation takes shape through the testing of daily life, far removed from romantic ideas of monastic enclosure. The Rule of St Benedict gives those who receive a new candidate a clear criterion: they must establish whether the novice ‘truly seeks God’. The words are few and apparently simple. Yet since beginning this journey, I have come to realise that they contain a question that cannot be answered once and for all.
When someone knocks at the door of a monastery, they bring with them a range of reasons. They may be drawn to the liturgy, to silence, to fraternal life or to the stability of a community that seems able to withstand the fragmentation of the modern world. They may long for a more ordered life, seek a place where they can pray more deeply, or try to understand a restlessness that they could no longer ignore outside the monastery.
Not all these motivations carry the same weight. None of them, however, should be dismissed too quickly. Even an incomplete motive may contain the beginnings of a call. The purpose of the novitiate is precisely to discern what, within that initial attraction, comes from God and what instead springs from fear, a need for protection, dissatisfaction or a desire to escape. St Benedict’s question does not ask whether the candidate has already understood everything. It asks whether they are seeking. The verb implies movement, attentiveness and a willingness to be led. A novice does not enter a monastery to discuss the existence of God in the abstract, but to come to know ever more deeply the One whose presence they recognise in their life. This search does not follow a straight path. There are days when prayer seems clear and others when the words of the psalms feel distant. There are moments when the choice that has been made seems self-evidently right, and others when questions, longings and resistance emerge. A vocation does not immediately remove human frailty. It carries that frailty with it and brings it into a new light.
On entering a monastery, one soon discovers that outward silence does not automatically bring inner peace. As voices, movement and distractions recede, thoughts begin to surface that were previously drowned out by noise. Memory brings back events, desires, wounds and unresolved relationships. Prayer itself can become the place where one discovers how difficult it is simply to remain present. The search for God also involves this growing knowledge of oneself. It is not a search for a religious idea shaped around one’s own needs. It is a gradual entry into a relationship that demands truth. This is why a monastery can be an uncomfortable place. It closes off certain avenues of escape and forces a person to look more closely at what lies within the heart.
St Benedict, however, does not leave the novice alone with their inner life. A vocation is tested within a community. Everyday actions, relationships, the way a correction is received, the ability to share in the work and one’s response to difficulties often reveal more than solemn declarations. Someone may speak convincingly about prayer and then become irritated because a brother has changed the schedule. They may desire a life of service and struggle when given an unrewarding task. They may imagine poverty as a great spiritual ideal and then discover how difficult it is to give up independent control over their belongings. Life in common makes the question of vocation concrete.
A monastery brings together different temperaments: some people are more active and others more contemplative, some more practical and others more reflective, some outgoing and others reserved. The Rule entrusts the abbot with the demanding task of accompanying this variety of human character. The fundamental criterion remains the sincere search for God, not conformity to any particular psychological type. This diversity prevents the community from becoming a group shaped according to personal preference. The brothers are not chosen. They are received. Shared life gives rise to affection, attachment, misunderstanding, impatience and gratitude. Monastic fraternity grows through these ordinary realities, not through a state of permanent emotional harmony.
Nor is the discernment of a vocation the novice’s responsibility alone. A candidate may be sincerely convinced of their calling and yet need the perspective of others in order to recognise things they cannot see for themselves. The community observes, accompanies and discerns. Before the clothing ceremony and the professions, the candidate’s choice is examined within a concrete setting of dialogue and responsibility.
This process may be experienced as intrusive. In reality, when carried out with maturity and respect, it protects the candidate’s freedom. A healthy community does not keep everyone who knocks at its door, nor does it treat every burst of initial enthusiasm as definitive proof of a vocation. It must know how to wait, how to ask questions and, at times, how to recognise that this path is not suited to the person before it. The opposite danger also exists. A community may become chiefly concerned with its own survival, particularly when its members are elderly and few in number. In such circumstances, the arrival of a young person may be welcomed as a solution to practical problems or as a promise for the future. A novice, however, does not enter in order to save an institution. Their life cannot be made to serve the needs of the monastery. Discernment must remain free from the desire to increase numbers or secure the continuation of works that may no longer be sustainable.
The question ‘Do you truly seek God?’ therefore also applies to those who receive the candidate. The community must ask itself whether it is helping the candidate to follow Christ or using them to protect itself. The novice master and the abbot are called to safeguard a vocation that does not belong to them. They may accompany it, test it and recognise its fruits; they cannot manufacture it. For the novice, this awareness brings an equally serious responsibility. It is not enough to wear a habit, learn the timetable or adopt the language of the monastery. Certain forms of outwardly edifying behaviour can be acquired relatively easily. The real test is whether a person is willing to be transformed. The novitiate is not a period in which to prove that one is already a monk. It is a time for learning to recognise the truth of one’s own question. It requires honesty, because there may be a temptation to present others with the image of the ideal candidate. It requires patience, because what is genuine reveals itself over time. It also requires the freedom to admit that some initial motivations were fragile or confused.
I am coming to understand that truly seeking God means allowing this search to call my expectations into question. The monastery I imagined before entering must give way to the monastery as it really is, made up of prayer and weariness, fraternity and conflict, light and spiritual dryness. The image I had of myself must also be tested. St Benedict’s question remains open. It does not produce a definitive answer that can be kept like a certificate. It returns in prayer, in work, in obedience and in one’s relationship with the brothers. Perhaps it accompanies the whole of monastic life. Each day it asks the question anew: whom are you seeking? And for whom are you prepared to remain?
