On Friday we received two novices into the community to begin their year of discernment. In addition to receiving the monastic habit, novices are also given the traditional monastic haircut. Saint Meinrad is one of the few places that continues this tradition. At the very least, it keeps the novice from running away for a month!
That's a picture of me on the day of my investiture, wearing the corona tonsure. Having a radical haircut may seem silly or archaic, but it serves as a rite of passage into something new. The exterior change should signal an interior one. The monastic life requires constant conversion.
Part of this conversion is conforming yourself to the monastic way of life, the customs of the house, monastic traditions. In a monastery there are lots of family traditions that get passed on. From one perspective these are a bunch of rules, but in another light they are just the way we do things. As a novice I had the self-expectation that I could fulfil all these rules and be the perfect monk. Of course, I failed.
I failed when I rang the wrong bells or put out the wrong numbers for the liturgy or came late to Mass. If you're a perfectionist like me, making mistakes feels especially embarrassing and foolish. The beautiful thing, however, is that God doesn't demand some constant adherence to external practices. Every novice makes mistakes; that's not failure. Giving up or hating yourself for your faults is a bigger failure in monastic life than oversleeping.
I think we want to follow the rules because we think we can earn our salvation that way. As long as I do everything I'm told, and a little extra, and don't make any mistakes, then God will have to accept me and make me a monk, and everyone will love me, too. The truth is that God has already accepted us. Seeking God is the monk's task and vocation, not virtue for the sake of virtue. The novitiate helps rid us of pride.
