Junior Seminar at Holy Cross Abbey

From April 25 – May 7, our three Juniors, Sr. Lily, Sr. Ashwini, and Sr. Jennifer, our most recently solemn professed, Sr. Rose, and Sr. Bonitas, representing the Regional Secretary for Formation, attended the Junior Seminar at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia.


The seminar is held annually and brings together the monks and nuns in simple vows from around the US Region for classes and fellowship.  This year’s seminar, the first in-person since 2019, was attended by sixteen young religious from seven different houses of the order.

Fr. Michael Casey, a monk of Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia, offered twenty classes over the course of the two weeks expanding upon the reflections he offered in his most recent book, Coenobium: Reflections on Monastic Community.  From the outset, he insisted that he did not want to simply offer information.  Rather, he hoped to invited the seminar participants to reflect upon their own experience of their monastic life and their communities through his talks on topics such as prayer, lectio divina, community relations, obedience, and self-truth.  The participants did this through discussions in class, in small groups, and in more casual settings, during meals and while walking.

The benefits of the Junior Seminar go beyond what can be learned in a classroom.  By bringing the Juniors together, they are able to learn about the customs and traditions of other houses and understand themselves as part of a Cistercian family that is larger than their local communities.  Perhaps the main sentiment that the participants went back to their communities with was a sense of hope—hope for their future as Cistercians and hope for the Order as a
whole—because God will always bring to a good end the work he has begun.