Letter of Petition for Simple Vows
“We have embraced a ‘new monasticism’ that is truly of the home and the workplace, as we seek to be as Christ to those we meet, and to find Christ within them.” Andrew Fitz-Gibbon
My dear travel companions in Christ. I have been blessed to spend this last year in discernment as a Novice of the New Benedictine Community. At our last annual meeting I formally began a journey which had lead me to the community time before that and also was part of a process of slow conversion into the Benedictine Way of Life that goes back as far as my Baptism (in danger of death) by a Benedictine Nun at the Hospital in Bismarck N. Dak. 56 years ago, only hours after my birth, and my upbringing at my grandparents home parish by Benedictine Monks from Dickinson N. Dak. And Living near St Johns Abbey in Collegeville Mn. which influenced so much of my spiritual formation growing up into my mid-life.
As I told Sr. Anna Kathleen the other day, part of the vow of stability is a vow to a specific community. In this case the NBC is that community for me! I can not imagine myself without that

Relationship now as a part of my extended family and spiritual community. So I humbly ask the community to accept my first profession of “simple vows” as we join at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Madison Wisconsin this summer. I consider the next three weeks that I will spend at the 2 Benedictine Monasteries in and around Munich as a kind of personal preparation for this moment in my journey. I am grateful for the dialogue, support, and welcome I have received since my first contact with the Community.
I beg your prayers as we continue to walk together in discovering the Way of Benedict as it leads us to Christ each other.
With Fondness,
Vincent C. Schwahn

 Novice. August 2014- July 5. 2015

(First Vows Profession August 15, 2015)