I have done Exodus three times in as many years and I hold that this is the kind of movement that will form the saints of our time. Going into my freshman year at NC State, God was acquainting me with suffering.
There was a major medical problem in my family and I had entered into a spiritual desolation in which God seemed far from me.
By His grace, I came to have an understanding of the theology of suffering and a desire for it. Then, He provided me with Exodus. The growth I saw in myself only left me with one question as Easter and Day 91 approached, “Why do we stop?”
I wrestled with this question for a few months and the answer came during a conversation with a Benedictine monk. He quoted the Rule of St. Benedict, “The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent.” (Chpt. 49)
I see this now as an early sign of my vocation, which I had been discerning for a year. I am now set to enter the Norbertine community of St. Michael’s Abbey in the Fall where, God-willing, I will one day be a priest.
