Vocation for a homeless guy

[DL82]

There’s a guy at the homeless shelter I volunteer at who’s really interested in joining a monastery.

He’s written to some Benedictines, and has been down to visit somewhere in England, which must have been a big deal for someone without income to travel all the way from Glasgow.

Anyway, he seems to have a genuine holiness and charism for silence and service, but he’s also quite disturbed, maybe has some mental health issues, and obviously no qualifications.

In the old days, he might have got on quite well as a ‘brown brother’ working in the fields for the Cistercians, or as a live-in Oblate doing the cooking and cleaning for some monastery somewhere. These days, they set the bar a lot higher.

I’ve been praying to St Benedict Joseph Labre (are there any good devotions to him that I could suggest to this man?) about him.

Any ideas? I said I’d talk to him about it next week, but really don’t know what to say, and don’t want to give false hope.

 

[Cloisters]

There’s a guy at the homeless shelter I volunteer at who’s really interested in joining a monastery.

He’s written to some Benedictines, and has been down to visit somewhere in England, which must have been a big deal for someone without income to travel all the way from Glasgow.

Anyway, he seems to have a genuine holiness and charism for silence and service, but he’s also quite disturbed, maybe has some mental health issues, and obviously no qualifications.

In the old days, he might have got on quite well as a ‘brown brother’ working in the fields for the Cistercians, or as a live-in Oblate doing the cooking and cleaning for some monastery somewhere. These days, they set the bar a lot higher.

I’ve been praying to St Benedict Joseph Labre (are there any good devotions to him that I could suggest to this man?) about him.

Any ideas? I said I’d talk to him about it next week, but really don’t know what to say, and don’t want to give false hope.

Does the shelter have any mental health resources? He’ll have to get that addressed before anyone will look at him for a possible vocation. There will have to be a diagnosis, treatment plan, spiritual director, and probably not in that order (probably reverse).

Could the Tyburn Bens there in London not afford him any spiritual direction?

HTH.

Blessings,
Cloisters

 

[DL82]

Does the shelter have any mental health resources? He’ll have to get that addressed before anyone will look at him for a possible vocation. There will have to be a diagnosis, treatment plan, spiritual director, and probably not in that order (probably reverse).

Could the Tyburn Bens there in London not afford him any spiritual direction?

HTH.

Blessings,
Cloisters

Am not aware of the Tyburn Bens (Benedictines, right?) Will see what I can find.

Thank you for your advice. There is also a Jesuit-run spiritual counselling service here in Glasgow that might be able to help on the therapy and spiritual direction side. I’ll suggest that to him.