Abbey of Gethsemani Novices

my name is brother Joseph and I'm originally from Cleveland Ohio my name is brother Lazarus I'm a novice here at Gethsemane and I've been here about 16 months I'm brother Abel I'm from New York Columbus Ohio our singing is very meaningful you're doing it throughout the day you know when we first get up in the evening before we go to bed and I sing with the escola brothers at Mass that sounds like a band the skull brothers central part of our day and then you observed more private time after that it's amazing that you've been up for four hours before you ever get anything close to work which is I think very human and very refreshing compared to a typical 40 or 50 hour per week work schedule well as a novice we don't have specific jobs usually it's kind of nice because we work in different areas of the monastery it's all very humble and hence simple which is kind of nice I'm primarily focused in on fruit cake packaging making sure that our homemade fruit cake gets into its vacuum sealed boxed up ready to go for shipping we spend a lot of time working on landscaping I didn't have a yard back home so it's kind of fun being outside I've always enjoyed gardening to grow something from seed to nourish it to harvest it and then in some cases to prepare and serve it to your brothers is a real joy on Saturday mornings it's our cleaning Duty mopping and dusting and sweeping and cleaning toilets there's always a bathroom involved that's the point of being here we do the same thing every day and we do it all together so we pray in choir a lot we meditate together a little we eat together twice a week we have classes and for five or six months out of the year we'll have a monthly class with a visiting scripture scholar and those are always enlightening and enjoyable and we it snacks and that's always fun it's almost all about community your my personal relationship to Christ and following him is the most important thing but the primary way that that's expressed his in the community and in the brothers when I first came in it was very kind of my growing in relationship to God as opposed to really being aware of the greater community and in their role in my formation and as I've grown into it I've seen that God is coming to me through my brothers and I'm growing through them I think if someone's even considering something like this and is watching a video about a place like this it's probably a good sign they should check it out that's the important thing is getting started well the first thing that I would say to most people because they talk to a not a lot but enough men my age you were interested in religious life saying stop thinking about it and do something [Music] you

Channel: Br Lawrence Morey

Views: 41,169

Keywords: Abbey of Gethsemani, Gethsemani, Cistercian, Strict Observance, Trappist, Thomas Merton, monastic, novice, monastery, vocation, religious life

Id: 0BZDfyhNvi0

Length: 3min 41sec (221 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 25 2018