Community Profile

Mount Angel Abbey Rev. Odo Recker, O.S.B. Vocation Director 1 Abbey Dr Saint Benedict, OR 97373-9700 503-845-3123 vocation@mountangelabbey.org www.mountangelabbey.org

Community Information

No. in community (professed members) 59 Year founded 1882 Generalate/ motherhouse Autonomous Province/federation Swiss American Benedictine Congregation Represented in US (Arch)dioceses Buffalo, NY; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Spokane, WA

About Us

Mission statement/description Mount Angel Abbey is a community of Benedictine priests and brothers, founded in 1882 from the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. They share a monastic tradition that has been a vital part of the Roman Catholic Church for more than fifteen hundred years. Responding to God’s call to holiness and preferring nothing whatever to Christ, they dedicate ourselves to a life of prayer and work. They follow the Rule of St. Benedict living a traditional monastic life. They chant the entire Divine Office, value silence and wear the habit. Their apostolates feature pastoral service, hospitality and priestly formation. They are scholars, pastors, teachers, administrators, artists, artisans and skilled and unskilled laborers. Qualifications for entry A prospective candidate must be a single Catholic man. He should have a firm desire for union with God through prayer, community life and service to the Church. He should have good physical, psychological and moral health, sound judgment, common sense, self-discipline and personal and social maturity. High school diploma required. Free of dependents and financial debt. Formation program The postulancy is six months long. It is a period of time for transition, prayer and discernment. Postulants wear a simple monastic tunic and participate in the life of the community. The novitiate is a year of continued prayer, discernment and trial as well as study of the important elements of monastic life: the Rule of St. Benedict, monastic history, Scriptures, liturgical spirituality, and the Desert Fathers. A novice wears a tunic and a scapular without a hood. At the completion of the novitiate, the novice professes simple vows of obedience, conversion of life and stability in the monastery for a period of three years. He takes a new name at this time is invested with a scapular and a hood. As a junior monk, the newly professed will be assigned work and studies in the community as he discerns and/or pursues priestly formation. At the end of the juniorate, a monk makes a solemn profession in which he reiterates the monastic vows of obedience, stability and conversion of life. Commitments are made for life. The senior monk is invested with the cuculla, a monastic choir robe and is now a full and equal partner in the monastic community. Age range/limit 18-40 Consider belated vocations? Yes Belated/late vocations explanation Candidates over the age of 40 are considered on an individual basis.