First Friday Adoration The monks of Mount Saint Joseph Abbey invite you to join us in praying silently for vocations to the priesthood and religious life before the Blessed Sacrament on the First Friday of every month. This period of silent prayer will be in the Abbey Church. Exposition will begin at 6.00 pm immediately after Vespers and ends with Benediction at 7.50 pm. The office of Compline follows. You are invited to join us for all or part of this time of prayer. If you are unable to join us we would ask that you keep this important intention in your prayers

“Merton Monday” “We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere – both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction.” Thomas Merton – No Man Is an Island

“Come and See” John 1:39 Monastic Experience Weekend Seeking God in Prayer and Community Mount Saint Joseph Abbey are hosting a Monastic Experience Weekend from Friday 29th September - Sunday 1st October 2017. It is an opportunity for men between the ages of 20 and 40 who may be discerning a monastic vocation to find out more about monastic life and to listen to God’s call by sharing the rhythm of the monastic daily prayer schedule. There will be an opportunity to speak one-to-one with a monk and reflect together on the monastic vocation. This might be for you: If you feel attracted to monastic life and wonder whether it might be for you. If you have thought sometimes that God might be calling you to religious life, but have hesitated to take the first step. To make an enquiry or to arrange a meeting to talk about your vocation discernment, please contact our Vocations Director, Br Malachy Thompson, by email to malachy@msjroscrea.ie or text ‘INFO’ to 085 8338503.

"Merton Monday" “There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God. The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our own lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in so doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocably to their true purpose.” Thomas Merton – No Man is an Island

We are delighted to welcome Music Ministry Together to Mount St Joseph and Cistercian College next month. MMT is a five-day summer school for youth and adult leaders who have a passion for liturgical music and the desire to serve as ministers in their parishes, schools and communities. You can find out more about the course www.musicministry.ie There are a limited number of scholarships available for this year’s summer school, the closing date for scholarship applications is 28th July - further information www.musicministry.ie/scholarships/

Saint of the Month Each month we feature a Saint depicted in the Stain Glass Windows of the Monastery. For the month of July we have chosen the beautiful image of Saint Benedict whose feast we celebrate today 11th July and whose Holy Rule we Cistercians live by. The window was procured from Earley & Powells in 1881. The inscription below it says “Plures benefactores in Dei et Patriarchae honorem” – Many benefactors to the honour of God and the Patriarch.

Merton Monday “Dark things come out of the depths of our souls, and we have to consider them and recognise them for our own… And while we face them, and cannot get rid of them, we realise more clearly than ever before our great need for God… Then begins a spiritual revaluation of all that is in us. We begin to ask ourselves what is and is not real in our ideals!” Thomas Merton – No Man is an Island

First Friday Adoration The monks of Mount Saint Joseph Abbey invite you to join us in praying silently for vocations to the priesthood and religious life before the Blessed Sacrament on the First Friday of every month. This period of silent prayer will be in the Abbey Church. Exposition will begin at 6.00 pm immediately after Vespers and ends with Benediction at 7.50 pm. The office of Compline follows. You are invited to join us for all or part of this time of prayer. If you are unable to join us we would ask that you keep this important intention in your prayers

“ Merton Monday” “It often happens that an old brother who has spent his life making cheese or baking bread or repairing shoes or driving a team of mules is a greater contemplative and more of a saint than a priest who has absorbed all Scripture and Theology and knows the writings of great saints and mystics and has had more time for meditation and contemplation and prayer.” Thomas Merton – New Seeds of Contemplation

“Merton Monday” “…if we think our mask is our true face, we will protect it with fabrications even at the cost of violating our own truth. This seems to be the collective endeavor of society: the more busily men dedicate themselves to it, the more certainly it becomes a collective illusion, until in the end we have the enormous, obsessive, uncontrollable dynamic of fabrications designed to protect mere fictitious identities – ‘selves,’ that is to say, regarded as objects…” Thomas Merton – Raids on the Unspeakable