I was pleased and surprised to find that a group of Trappist monks at New Melleray Abbey have been discussing my book, Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers that Even I Can Offer. One of the monks described their impressions:
This evening several of us gathered to watch a segment of The Gist in which Leah Libresco talks about her conversion from atheism to Catholicism. Formed in a scientifically minded culture which demands that religious truth be empirically verifiable, Leah gives a hearing to religious truth and objective moral truth which changes her life. After watching the video we shared our thoughts and discussed the commonalities and divergences of faith arrived at by the use of reason or by experiences of trial and the Cross.
Here’s the clip that they were watching:
As a heads up, the monks at New Melleray are having their next vocations weekend on October 6-8, if you’d like to give God the chance to tell you to be a monk the easy way, by giving you a sense of coming home when you visit a monastery, rather than the dramatic, letters-of-fire-in-the-sky way.
And that same weekend, the Dominican Sisters of Nashville are having a Jesu Caritas retreat. You don’t have to be discerning a vocation to consecrated life to come—I went on one two years ago. It’s a lovely prayer retreat with joyful, generous women.