A Monk’s Journey Br. Damian Banks
The problem with trying to work out how your life has taken you to a monastery is that the temptation to find a pattern is hard to resist. For instance, although I was not raised a Catholic I was aware of the church due to having attended a Catholic primary school attached to the local parish. The parish church was staffed by monks of the English Benedictine Congregation, from Belmont Abbey. During a rather unsettled period of my secondary education I would clandestinely attend Mass there at lunchtime for several years, for reasons I found hard to articulate.
When I later converted to Catholicism in 1996 at University, the parish where I converted was also run by monks of Belmont Abbey. This parish, in Swansea, had formally been under the care of Douai Abbey, the English Benedictine monastery I would later enter as a postulant. Given the number of times the English Benedictines occur in my life story it may seem inevitable that I thought of joining them. And yet that’s not the way it seemed at the time.
I was raised in a very loving, rather Evangelical family. Yet despite the excellent spiritual input I received outside the Catholic Church, it was within the Church that I found the space and freedom within which to develop my relationship with God.
I had become aware before I converted that there was something that God wanted me to do as a Catholic and I was full of enthusiasm to find out what it was. Inevitably I thought of a vocation. Unfortunately none of the doors I tried seemed to open, and after a while frustration began to set in.
Over the ten years following University my perspective on life was darkened by various other factors, which as well as the usual romantic disappointments and the grind of transitory, unskilled work also included some bad habits that seemed to be running my life for me.
So, ten years after entering the Church I was feeling alienated from the Church in particular and Christianity in general. Mercifully, in 2006 I went on a pilgrimage to Assisi organized by the Conventual Franciscans which really turned my life around. Kneeling in the chapel of San Damiano I grew to appreciate Gods merciful love for me shown through the forgiveness he extended even before my many mistakes. On my return to the UK I managed to find work, friends, and some support to tackle the problems and mistakes that had hamstrung me over the last ten years. After years of something close to despair about ever getting to a place where I could serve God as He deserved I even started thinking about whether I had a vocation.
I visited Douai Abbey for the first time in January 2007, and the first time I entered the Abbey Church I got a sense that the God whom I had come to appreciate in Assisi was here too.
Following Postulancy, I was clothed as a Novice (and received the name Damian) in November 2008. In 2010 I will make Temporary Vows for three years of obedience, stability and, what is intriguingly called, ‘conversatio morum’, or conversion of manners. These vows describe a whole integrated process of conversion, a turning away from myself towards God.. I hope that when the Abbot and Community see fit I will take Solemn Vows which will reconfirm my commitment and make it lifelong. The whole of life in a monastery is centered on putting this commitment into practice on a daily and mundane level, through prayer and service.
The guiding aim of my life is to belong to God. What is so attractive to me about monasticism is that it is not just an aspiration or a private commitment. As you go through the formation process you come to belong to God legally, hence the dispossession of your goods before Solemn Vows and the binding of yourself to obedience. These are signs that you don’t belong to yourself anymore, you belong to God.. This is what matters most to me in my life, and the goal I want to orientate my life around.
Article from..http://www.ukvocation.org/a-monks-journey
When I later converted to Catholicism in 1996 at University, the parish where I converted was also run by monks of Belmont Abbey. This parish, in Swansea, had formally been under the care of Douai Abbey, the English Benedictine monastery I would later enter as a postulant. Given the number of times the English Benedictines occur in my life story it may seem inevitable that I thought of joining them. And yet that’s not the way it seemed at the time.
I was raised in a very loving, rather Evangelical family. Yet despite the excellent spiritual input I received outside the Catholic Church, it was within the Church that I found the space and freedom within which to develop my relationship with God.
I had become aware before I converted that there was something that God wanted me to do as a Catholic and I was full of enthusiasm to find out what it was. Inevitably I thought of a vocation. Unfortunately none of the doors I tried seemed to open, and after a while frustration began to set in.
Over the ten years following University my perspective on life was darkened by various other factors, which as well as the usual romantic disappointments and the grind of transitory, unskilled work also included some bad habits that seemed to be running my life for me.
I visited Douai Abbey for the first time in January 2007, and the first time I entered the Abbey Church I got a sense that the God whom I had come to appreciate in Assisi was here too.
Following Postulancy, I was clothed as a Novice (and received the name Damian) in November 2008. In 2010 I will make Temporary Vows for three years of obedience, stability and, what is intriguingly called, ‘conversatio morum’, or conversion of manners. These vows describe a whole integrated process of conversion, a turning away from myself towards God.. I hope that when the Abbot and Community see fit I will take Solemn Vows which will reconfirm my commitment and make it lifelong. The whole of life in a monastery is centered on putting this commitment into practice on a daily and mundane level, through prayer and service.
The guiding aim of my life is to belong to God. What is so attractive to me about monasticism is that it is not just an aspiration or a private commitment. As you go through the formation process you come to belong to God legally, hence the dispossession of your goods before Solemn Vows and the binding of yourself to obedience. These are signs that you don’t belong to yourself anymore, you belong to God.. This is what matters most to me in my life, and the goal I want to orientate my life around.
Article from..http://www.ukvocation.org/a-monks-journey
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