At the start of the school year, we were hit by the sudden news of the addition of 7 new novices joining the Cistercian monastery. Although this headline came in hot at the start of the year, not much has been said since about the novices. This all leads to a further question: “Why are these novices so special?”
These new novices are now apart of the biggest novice class in our school’s history, beating out the old record held by the 2013 class with 4 total novices. The last full novice class to all become monks was back in 2005 with Fr. Ambrose, Fr. Ignatius, and Fr. Thomas, so even continuing with the usual trend of 50% of novices going through to join the monastery, this new class has the potential to have 4 monks in one class.
When I spoke with Fr. Peter about this, he emphasized that this novice class was a “new birth” for not only the monastery but for the wider Cistercian community. As the Hungarian monks continue to grow older, this new wave of vocations gives the older generation confidence in the continued flourishing of the school. This huge influx, in the eyes of the abbot, is also a huge affirmation for all the work he has personally put in to cultivate the great Cistercian culture. These novices also allow the monastery to broaden its horizons—for example, by furthering the monks’ goal of self-sustainability by developing the livestock already on campus.
Furthermore, past the logistics, Fr. Matthew comments that this class of novices gives off the energy of a “mini form” with their abounding energy and ability to keep the whole monastery on their toes. Their enthusiasm and joy having been described as infectious, these novices have so far been a unique class compared to their predecessors. One of their outstanding aspects is the adeptness they had with adjusting to this radical new way of life. In fact, they took to it so quickly that, although it is Fr. Matthew’s first year as novice master, he considers it not so daunting but instead exciting and fortunate to have such an inviting class.
This class’s rarity among previous novices and similarity to a Cistercian form is so much so that this group has even done harmless tricks, similar to the commonly employed “magnetic desk” prank used especially in English class. One of the many examples Fr. Matthew recalls vividly was the novices mixing up the name tags on their rooms, ending up in the great confusion of a front office lady as she tried to search for the correct novice. This is one of the many stories that these novices have already been a part of which have invigorated life in the abbey, so if you ever happen to bump into a novice, be sure to ask him for any other funny stories and he will be more than happy to indulge with you everything he knows.