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On Saturday, July 30th, Br. Ignatius Prakarsa, O.S.B. made his solemn profession during a Mass of Our Lady and the day before the feast of his patron St. Ignatius of Loyola. The ceremony of a monk’s final oblation, offering himself body and soul to God, is a truly moving experience. We had guests from all over the world; friends from England, Poland, the U.S.A, local townspeople, and the family and friends of Br. Ignatius (who travelled for 24 hours from Indonesia to be here) hear him ask the Lord to “Receive me, O Lord, according to Your word and I shall live, and do not confound me in my hope.” (Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam, et non confundas me ab expectatione mea).
We then saw him undergo the mystical burial and heard the funeral bells ring, a sign that now only his hope in God can sustain him in the monastic life and then with the words “Arise, you who sleep, and rise up from death, and Christ shall enlighten you.” (Surge, qui dormis, et exsurge a mortuis, et illuminabit te Christus), he has performed the act of oblation and rises from this mystical death to the sound of joyous bells ringing out. He accepts the Cuculla, the mark of a solemnly professed monk, and is now ready to enter the school of the Lord’s service, hopefully to follow it to the end of his life.
The ceremony is a powerful symbol for our monks; for the solemnly professed it is a reminder of their own act of surrender to God and shows that brothers are joining them on their journey, and for the juniors, novices and postulants it shows the unbroken link of abandonment to God and His providence, we are also reminded that the family is growing ever stronger and is waiting to receive us truly and fully as sons of God, under the watchful care of the Rule and the Abbot.
We ask for your prayers for the continued strengthening of our community and that in the silence we may here the words of God more clearly and grow in love of Him and of the monastic life.