Lent

Lent is a precious season in the monastery.  St Benedict says that the life of a monk ought to be a continual lent, although few have the stamina for this.  We enter a place of stark simplicity where the air is clear, and the landscape uncluttered.  We set aside any superfluity in food, drink, sleep, needless talking and idle jesting so as to focus on the essentials: prayer with tears, reading, compunction of heart and self-denial.  A place like this brings out the single-pointed desire of the heart for the Lord, whom we gladly follow along the narrow way, the way of spiritual joy, the path that leads from death to life.