Have a monastic vocation? Consider Ireland

[AlbMagno]

Thank you for saying that, and, as one priest told me, some hyper-traditional orders usually “catch” people convincing them they should be priests without them doing enough discerment. That’s another factor to consider.

 

[GiftofMercy]

A monk said to me this weekend that monasteries are places for churning out and producing people who do contemplative prayer. They do it well because two things are needed for contemplative prayer and providing the monk is living according to his rule, he has those 2 things in his daily life.

The consecration is to give their entire life to God. And that those orders dying out and those orders springing up, and growing, are what the Holy Spirit considers needed for charisms and the times and the Church.

He also said an order should not be worried about its numbers.

 

[babochka]

The monks that are left there, particularly the abbot are a sort of crabby and cranky lot. They come across as depressed and self defeated and looks as if they’re just using the monastery as an old folks home where they’ll die in prayer. I’m willing to help but every time I go near the door for anything else I get the impression I’m seen as a nuisance rather than a help.

This might explain their problem. Any young man coming in would have to live with these men. He would have to find life in the monastery attractive. What is appealing about community life there?

 

[TomH1]

Mellifont has the full Divine Office

They do not have Prime, and they only have Terce on Sundays (according to their own website).

It has nothing to do with traditionalism but everything to do with people choosing these places because there’s very few of them around the world so naturally on a whole just one monastery will gather many vocations for that reason.

That is simply not true. There are many religious communities that do not maintain traditions and are the only one of their kind or one of very few in their country or region. Therefore, traditional religious communities are not attracting vocations because they are few in number. When aspirants are asked why they are choosing a traditional monastery they say it is because it is traditional.

If you had 20 monasteries in Ireland (which we have and possibly more) that offered TLM and only one monastery that offered the Ordinary form the numbers would be the same. It’s a case of simple Math.

No, it only appears that way. When young (and it is mostly young) men and women are asked why they are joining a traditional monastery it is because that is what they feel called to. It would not matter if 99% of monasteries in Ireland or anywhere else were traditional (and that is far more than just having TLM). Aspirants do not join a community, nor would a community accept them, just because ‘it was there’. Aspirants have to be drawn to a community because of its way of life. If you knocked on the door of a monastery and said I want to be a monk here and when asked why you answered just because you are here you would be turned away no matter how desperate they were for vocations.

Many of the anti-Pope Francis and sspx type like to make claims that their seminaries are thriving

My verdict on Pope Francis is still out with the jury but I do accept him as the pope and pay due obedience to him. I am most definitely not an anti-Francis person. I am not a supporter of and have nothing to do with the SSPX. They are canonically irregular and so I avoid them. That does not alter the fact that celebrating the liturgy in the extraordinary form, gregorian chant, Latin, and the Catholic faith without apology or excuse is fully taught is attracting young people. If you are arguing that it is only because these are few in number then our seminaries in England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland should be full of seminarians. They are not and they are far fewer in number than they used to be. Many have been closed simply because there are insufficient vocations to fill them. None have the numbers an SSPX seminary would have and still would not if they were reduced to one seminary for the whole of Britain and Ireland.

Whether you care to admit it or not what people call traditional Catholicism is attracting vocations to seminaries and religious communities. The facts speak for themselves and I think that tell us something.

 

[Dan_Defender]

There are (nominally) three times as many Catholics in Poland than in Canada.

Fair enough.

 

[JHFamily]

I have found from the TLM parishes I have visited or that I know about, there are more vocations per capita coming from TLM parishes rather than OF parishes. That’s anecdotal evidence, of course. But in my parish, there have been several vocations from the TLM community and none from the OF community. It holds true at least here. The number of TLM communities continue to grow, so I expect the number of vocations from them will as well; there are still many places where there are people who want a TLM that do not have it.

There was an informal survey done this past year that supported my own observations. Hopefully, a more academic/scientific one will be forthcoming.