so, this is what monastic life is all about

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Do you know what were my first expectations and impressions about monastic life before I came over to the monastery?

A romantic notion of flowing habits, candle-lit cloisters, awesome plainchants of an ancient Gregorian music echoing among dimly lit Gothic arches in the cloister corridors inside a monastery.

But all of these romantic thoughts soon gave way to the reality of doing laundry for my community brothers, washing dishes after the main meal of a good number of monks and their guests, scrubbing floors and toilets for a good four and a half years of monastic formation (remember: a monk starts as ‘postulant’ for six months, then ‘novice’ for a year, and then a ‘Professed monk in Temporary/Simple Vows’ for three years), and the unbearable mistakes we make during our chants of one hundred fifty Psalms for the week to the embarrassments from our Novice Master, Junior Master, the Prior and/or the Abbot themselves, not mentioning the whole congregation.


Eight times a day, including the Celebration of the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, my community gathers to pray, praise God and read the Holy Scriptures. This structure and discipline inside the monastery leads us to a greater awareness of God’s immediacy and our utter dependence on His grace in every moment, and to specifically remember that Christ is present at our side in each of those moments.

As monks, we strive diligently to combine prayer with work, and anything that is harmonious with prayer is thereby dignified especially when it is consciously offered as a gift to GOD.

From Monday to Saturday, we spend three hours and-a-half of daily work, that is, from 9:10 Am to 12:40 Pm. We have various works inside the cloister; work that involves the accounting office, kitchen cleaning, pantry work, cooking, laundry work, guesthouse cleaning, garbage recycling, gift shoppe portering, guesthouse and gift shoppe credit cards posting and validations, cleaning of the Abbey Church and Convento, computer works involving the community‘s website, guests reservations, various crafts, guest master work and business correspondence.

Monastic study inside the monastery is also a kind of work as well. Our minds needed to be exercised along with our body and spirit. Historically, monks have often been considered as among those who have acquired an advanced intellectual and cultural life of the Catholic Church and also that of the secular society. Our postulants, novices, and monks in Temporary Simple Vows, normally called as Junior monks, attend monastic classes everyday as part of their monastic formation. The rigid thirty-minute a day monastic class with our monk-professors, is what makes us, (monks who are under formation), made ready to face the challenges of monastic life and its components inside the cloister.

We take audited courses like Philosophy, Holy Rule, Monastic Practices, Gregorian Chants, Vows, Introduction to Latin, Liturgy, Sacred Scripture, Monastic History, New Testament, Patristics, Christology, and Church History.

The Credited courses will only come after a junior monk is consecrated with Perpetual Vows, that is, after finishing his three years of Temporary Simple Vows. He will then be sent to do formal schooling in a Benedictine School here in the US or in Rome for a Theology Course as requirement in receiving his Priestly ordination.

But there is no college degree required in entering our monastery. Instead, only a heart that is willing to serve, to pray, to work, to grow, and to do all for the glory of God. So, my monastery encourages and provides opportunity for each of us to better ourselves intellectually as well as spiritually, hence the Lectio Divina (Sacred Readings) inside the own cells of Senior monks.

It’s all up to the senior monk to really observe this opportunity and avail of such chance to grow himself spiritually in the pursuit of his monastic vocation with the observance of the one-hour daily Lectio Divina inside his own cell. The monks in formation that is; postulants, novices and junior monks take their one-hour Lectio Divina in common, at the Chapter room, and again, this gives them a chance to grow in spiritual maturity and strengthen their monastic observance.

What I’ve come to realize also, is that, when you come to live in the monastery, in GOD’s house, you make a contract with Him. He pays the bills, feeds you, clothes you, gives you place to sleep, and every other form of sustenance.

But on the other hand, all you have to do as part of that contract with GOD is to love; that is, to really love faithfully and sincerely the ones He sends to live with and share this way of life with you in the cloister.

Is it an easy and a happy-go-lucky type of endeavor?

An easy thing to do? Well, it’s not. It is not an easy one, I swear!

With our multi-racial, cultural type of community, we can’t do anything but to experience from time to time and every now and then, a rub of each other’s elbows in seven days a week, in thirty days a month, and in twelve months a year. Monastery of Christ In the Desert is comprised of Americans, Vietnamese who arrived at the monastery as non-English speaking monks, Indians, Mexicans, Italians, and Filipinos.

So, you can just imagine how difficult it is to get a possible smooth and hassle-free type of doing effective and flawless communications with one another.