Formation...
      Lay-Cistercians of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery are Catholics who are striving for personal sanctification by living in the world according to the ideals of the Cistercian charism. We commit ourselves to pray for the spiritual and temporal needs of priests and religious, especially for those of the Cistercian Order, and in particular for the monastic community of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. We seek to encourage the growth of contemplative prayer in the world by striving to be a leaven within the contemporary world through our living of the Cistercian charism.
      On Formation

Formation  Program

Recomended Readings

Questions Asked

How many classes are going on when you have the Gathering Days?

       In the time schedule, during what’s called the formation hour, the novices go with their novice leaders and the juniors with their junior class and the professed have their own class. The professed decide within themselves what will be the content for their hour. Maybe for six months they are going to discuss something about Saint Bernard or right now we’re working on a project together.
The smaller groups help to develop that sense of belonging the courage that it takes to be community. It takes courage to trust and risk and to accept other people. This one hour that we’re in our individual groups, you’re belonging to a smaller number of people which is very beneficial for the health of the whole. It doesn’t cut you off from the rest of the group, but it strengthens you to belong to all.
By beginning in a little novice class where there’s three or five or ten of you and slowly being immersed in the larger group and knowing that there are times when we’re together that there are smaller gatherings in which you can think out loud. And even if you say it wrong or backwards, it’s okay. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re eloquent or not, what matters is that you’re humble and you’re trusting.
       It doesn’t matter to me where a person starts from. What matters is are they growing because of what they are experiencing from the Gathering Days and what they’re experiencing from living the principles outside. The people that I have seen be the most uncomfortable about Gathering Days are the people who have not actually begun the process of changing how they live in their individual life. If they’re not praying the Liturgy of the Hours at home. If they’re not somehow invested in setting aside time during the day in lectio divina. If they are not turning off the television or the radio or CNN or whatever it is for some increment of time on a daily basis to sit in silent love of God, then they’re not comfortable when they coming to a Gathering Day. Because that process of conversion is not happening in their own context, they’re not going to be comfortable in the communal context.
       I think that in our statutes the provision for the genuine striving for the way of life, and pastoral care… it’s just to come as you are. And the experience of just actually being accepted—just actually accepted for our efforts—is one of the most healing things that I have ever observed for myself and for other people. So I think our “come as you are” heals that fear of lifetime commitment because there’s pastoral understanding and assistance.
       But during that formation hour everybody in the community has a smaller group to go to whether it’s their formation class, novice class, or junior class, and then the professed have their own group.

Why do you only receive new people every two years?

       In the beginning, we tried every year and we found it disruptive after a couple of years because the cycles keep overlapping too much so we prefer to take a group every two years. And by waiting two years you generally have somewhere between and four and fifteen people that are coming in that group.
       We’ve just finished that process of inquirers becoming novices, so now I have a lady that I am talking with who thinks she might want to be a Lay Cistercian. Although we don’t “take in” anyone during this interval, we still encourage them to attend retreats here at the monastery on Cistercian spirituality. I ask them: Have you ever read the Holy Rule? Do you pray the Liturgy of the Hours? Depending on their answer, I encourage them to what they can be doing to foster the spirituality through not only Cistercian spirituality retreats but by beginning spiritual reading on their own. So I try to foster them on an individual basis until it’s time for the next inquiry session.
       Sometimes they have to wait about a year-and-a-half at the most, but Saint Benedict in his Rule says to “leave them at the gate knocking” (Ch. 58:3). This is not meant to be rude, but it’s meant for order and stability and to make sure it’s God’s will and not the individual’s will. However, we do make some adjustments. Say we’ve had two inquiry sessions and somebody shows up that is sincere in wanting to begin the process. We’ll get somebody to catch them up on the two sessions they missed so that they can enter into the rhythm of the rest. So we make some pastoral adjustments within that initial period, but we usually don’t bring new people into the process. It’s just not beneficial to them because they don’t have the same momentum. They haven’t had the same nurturing and information and formation as the rest, and they often feel off balance from the rest. The process fosters a certain rhythm in being called to community.

What does the promise of stability mean?

       A lifetime commitment comes at the end of this more than five-year process in which it’s very important to us that there be a stability in the coming to the monthly gatherings. There’s pastoral understanding that people get sick or certain things happen with their family, but if there is a commitment—a conversion of a way of life where that one day a month is a priority—then we find that really people will only be absent maybe three or at the most four times a year. But the focus of stability is being able to come to our monthly gathering.

Formation Program for Lay Cistercians
of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery

Pre-inquirers This is not a part of the structured formation program, but individuals waiting for the next inquiry session to begin are encouraged in these areas.	Encouraged to: read What Makes a Cistercian Monk? by Fr. Anthony attend “Cistercian Spirituality” retreats read Holy Rule of St. Benedict with commentaries pray the Liturgy of the Hours
Inquirers	Formal introduction to: Holy Rule of St. Benedict Liturgy of the Hours monastic practices (lectio divina, contemplative prayer) OLHS Lay Cistercian Statutes
First-year Novices	The Cistercian Way by Dom André Louf
Second-year Novices	Centered on Christ by Dom Augustine Roberts
First-year Junior	St. Benedict for Beginners by Dom Julian Stead, O.S.B.
Second-year Junior	Early documents of the Cistercian Order (Exordium Parvum) OCSO Constitutions
Third-year Junior	Individual study of a Cistercian of choice (For example, St. Bernard, Blessed Cassant, Blessed Michael Tansi, Blessed Gabriella)

Recomended Reading                                 

What Makes a Cistercian Monk?

by Anthony Delisi (Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery, 2003).

Available on-line, click Abbey Store, or call 1-800-592-5203 (local 770-483-7228).        

        Every Sunday after Lauds, the community of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery would walk in procession through the cloister to a room where Father Anthony Delisi, superior ad nutum, 2002-2003, would give a chapter talk. Historically, the talks are a way for the abbot or superior of the monastery to encourage the brothers in their communal and personal living of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Father Anthony’s talks on the Rule were frequently based on his own experiences in monastic life. They provided the novices and newly professed monks a glimpse of the monastery’s history and what some of the founders call the “good old days.” The theme of the chapter talks was based on the charisms of the Cistercian order, those special graces from the Holy Spirit that identify the Cistercian Order. They are the framework that structures and defines the daily life of a Cistercian.

The Cistercian Way by André Louf

(trans. Nivard Kinsella, Cistercian Publications, 1989; 1996).  

Available on-line, click Abbey Store, or call 1-800-592-5203 (local 770-483-7228).        

         In The Cistercian Way Dom André Louf and six of his monks who cooperated with him have presented us with a good modern statement of classic Cistercian spirituality. While the text is a joint effort involving collaboration of mind and heart, there is little doubt that it can be described as the work of a spiritual father and his disciples. For the Abbot’s thought and approach are very much in evidence throughout. Dom André has a fine knowledge of the whole of monastic tradition. He has thoroughly imbibed this tradition, so that he is eminently suited for the task of producing such a work.
        Deep within himself everyone has an unquenchable thirst for God—a radical need of him so that there is no ultimate rest to be found without God. This thirst for the Absolute, this dissatisfaction with what life offers, though it may appear from the outside to be central to monastic life, is not in fact at the heart of monasticism. In baptism the Christian has had his nature transformed by grace. He enjoys the divine presence within, inviting him to personal communion. To seek to lead a deeper spiritual life, to want to lead a life of prayer, cannot be for the monk merely a greater effort to awaken and intensify that need of God which is everyone’s by nature. Much more is it an opening of himself to God's grace and presence—a consent to God’s call. Of its very nature Christian monasticism has to be Christ-centered, and the person who lives the monastic life is but living out his baptismal calling in a specific manner. – Introduction by Dom Celsus Kelly

Centered on Christ: An Introduction to Monastic Profession

by Augustine Roberts (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1979; 1993). Out of print        

       The premise which underlies this entire volume is that the monk's life can only be understood by seeing it as a union of two different spiritual movements present throughout the history of mankind and particularly significant in the world of today: man’s desire for community and his search for personal union with the Eternal. The fusion, rather than the opposition, of these two deep currents of the spirit makes Benedictine life, at one and the same time, strongly cenobitic and clearly contemplative.
        …In this sense, the growing interest in mysticism and methods of contemplation may mean that others besides Benedictines or Cistercians will be using this book. If so, it will simply be another sign of the “monk” hidden in every human heart. It should be easy for such readers to adapt the work to their particular needs and circumstances. Thus the chapters on chastity, poverty, and obedience are able to be applied without difficulty to other forms of Christian and religious life. The monastic experience of these evangelical counsels can be of help to all sincere Christians in appreciating more fully the Gospel’s contemplative dimension. The chapters on conversion of life, stability, and spiritual methods, though more specifically monastic, may actually be of greater general interest, since they point to the self-transcendence and inner integration which is at the heart of every truly human life. Here also, the concrete details should be adapted to one’s personal vocation. The emphasis on a unified approach to the vows, which is contained in the monk’s promise of conversion, can be especially helpful to other forms of Christian spirituality which sometimes tend to magnify this or that aspect of the Gospel out of proportion to the whole. – Preface

Saint Benedict: A Rule for Beginners

by Julian Stead, O.S.B. (New City Press, 1994).

Available on-line, click Abbey Store, or call 1-800-592-5203 (local 770-483-7228).        

          As Julian Stead, O.S.B., makes clear, Benedict was not a speculative thinker, a philosopher-theologian. He was a very practical spiritual father, who worked in a down to earth way to help his fellow Christians find their way back to their heavenly homeland. This beautiful summary of Benedict’s teaching is by a man who has faithfully lived the Benedictine life for more than half a century. It is a valuable and clear presentation of the spirit of the one who provided the lamps and kept them burning throughout the Dark Ages, and in many cases since then.
        …Father Julian has carefully selected several substantial elements of the Benedictine corpus of writings and has commented on these with wisdom and wit. Each chapter stands by itself and presents another aspect of the saint’s thoughts. – Preface by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.