The Story Behind This Blog
About
How a restless person found a very old road.
did not come to Benedictine life through a dramatic conversion or a single luminous moment. I came to it the way most people come to things that matter — slowly, circuitously, and with a great deal of resistance along the way.
For years I had been drawn to the monastery without quite knowing what to do with that pull. I would visit, stay for a day or a weekend, sit in choir for Vespers, and then return to ordinary life carrying something I could not name. It took a long time to understand that what I was carrying was a question, and that the question had an answer.
What Is a Benedictine Oblate?
An oblate is a layperson — or sometimes a non-monastic cleric — who affiliates with a Benedictine monastery and commits to living the spirit of the Rule of St. Benedict in the context of ordinary life. The word oblate comes from the Latin oblatus, meaning "offered." An oblate offers their life, with all its particularity and limitation, to God in the Benedictine way.
Oblates are not monks or nuns. They do not live in the monastery, take solemn vows, or leave their families and professions. They live in the world — working, raising children, paying bills, navigating the ordinary texture of daily life — while trying to bring the values of the Rule to bear on all of it: prayer, work, stability, conversion of life, and the slow practice of listening.
The novice year is a period of formation before final oblation. It is a time of learning, discernment, and deepening — reading the Rule, attending retreats, praying the Hours as one is able, and asking honestly whether this is the life one is being called to.
The Monastery
I am affiliated with a Benedictine monastery in the United States. I have chosen not to name it here, not out of secrecy, but out of a desire to keep this blog focused on the interior journey rather than the particular place. The community has been generous and patient with me, as Benedictine communities tend to be.
What I can say is that the monastery is a living community — monks who pray the Hours together, work, welcome guests, and have been doing so for generations. Sitting in choir with them, even as a visitor, is one of the most stabilizing experiences I know. Something in the rhythm of it — the same psalms, the same hours, day after day, century after century — settles the mind in a way that nothing else quite does.
About This Blog
I started writing here because I wanted a record of this year — not a polished account, but an honest one. The novice year is not always serene. There are weeks when the Rule feels like a gift and weeks when it feels like an accusation. There are days when the Hours are a lifeline and days when they are simply one more thing to fit into an already crowded life.
I write for fellow oblates and for anyone discerning whether this path might be theirs. I write for people who are drawn to the monastery but do not know what to do with that draw. I write, honestly, for myself — because writing is how I think, and this year deserves to be thought through carefully.
If you find something useful here, I am glad. If you have questions or want to share your own experience of the oblate life, you are welcome to reach out. We are, as St. Benedict says, to prefer nothing to the love of Christ — and part of that love is the company of those who are also trying.
"Listen carefully, my child, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart."