"Listening and Discerning: A Life Directions Weekend," May 27-29, 2016.

(Candidates may come for personal discernment anytime.)

Are you a single man who is...

          ...seeking to give yourself to Christ?

                    ...looking for help in discernment?

                              ...attracted to a life of prayer?

                                        ...wanting to learn more about monastic life?

New Melleray Abbey invites you to spend a weekend with us. Come, listen to monks who have consecrated their lives to Christ, and discover how we found our own life direction.

Our community welcomes your participation next May in our Life Directions Weekend from Friday evening through lunch on Sunday. Your meals and lodging accommodations at New Melleray are offered without charge. A registration fee of $10.00 will be refunded upon arrival.

You are invited to share in our monastic celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, joining with us in choir to pray together in the beauty and simplicity of our church. There will be time to talk about your personal story and to hear how we discerned our vocations. You will be able to share experiences, hopes, and concerns about making life decisions with others who are participating in the weekend.

In keeping with the monastic approach to contemplative life, those who wish may stay Sunday afternoon and part of Monday to have personal time for quiet prayer, or to talk with the vocation director for further discernment of a monastic vocation.

If you would like to learn more about this Discernment Weekend, or to reserve a room, please call or e-mail our vocation director:

Phone: 563.588.2319

New Melleray Abbey
Life Directions Weekend
6632 Melleray Circle
Peosta, IA 52068



My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going. I do no see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude