Father Matthias Martinez, O.S.B.

In the Fall of 1996 I transferred into a diocesan seminary college in Boston, to begin a long period of study towards the diocesan priesthood. Very early on, I began to feel a call to religious life, a real pull towards the communal life. Few of the diocesan priests that I knew had the opportunity to live such a life; most lived alone in parish rectories.

While continuing my studies, I began to explore and study different religious orders, gradually moving towards monastic orders. I studied the Trappists in depth, and spent Spring Break of my senior year in the vocation cottage of a local Trappist abbey. That life, though full of beauty, seemed to be more intense than I could handle. Eventually, I was introduced to the Order of St. Benedict by my spiritual director, and began to read more about this monastic order.

When I completed the college seminary, I moved on to the school of theology. I entered the First Theology class, and it was there that God brought me into deeper contact with the OSB, by way of two monks who became my classmates. They were from a local abbey, and as I got to know one of them, I also learned more about the order.

With his help, I arranged the first of many visits to his monastery, to see the life of a Benedictine first hand. These visits grew in duration, as did my study and discernment of the life, until I finally reached a point where I felt that I had to leave the seminary to discern this life full time.In Spring of 2001, at the completion of Second Theology, I withdrew from the seminary.

More visits and interviews followed, but the more I experienced this house and prayed about my experiences, the more I realized that this monastery was not for me. Each Benedictine monastery observes the Rule of St. Benedict, but every monastery has its own unique feel. I did not feel as though I would fit in at this particular house.

I stopped the visits, and took a year off from discernment. My prayer was: Lord, I don't know where you are leading me. I am going to live the life of an ordinary, holy, Catholic layman, and if this is the wrong path, then make your will known to me; beat me over the head with it. I found a job, and lived a very ordinary life.

After about a year, my life just seemed empty. I saw some of my friends getting married, but could not picture myself doing the same. More importantly, I saw my classmates from the seminary become ordained; that hit me pretty hard. I realized that the emptiness that I was feeling was God's way of telling me that this life that I was living, as good as it was, was not what I was supposed to be doing. And yet, I did not feel a call to follow the path of my friends to diocesan priesthood; rather, their ordinations spurred me to return to my discernment of the OSB.

After having visited abbeys in the 30 to 40 man range, I decided to look towards a larger house. St. Vincent Archabbey was the closest, so I made the first visit in February of 2003. I stayed in the novitiate for a whole week; by the second day, I knew I was in love. This house felt right for me, prayerful, well balanced, with a healthy community, and a diverse number of apostolates. I really felt as though all those years of discernment and study had finally paid off, that God had finally drawn me to where I belonged. I returned home, gave my two week notice, then returned to St. Vincent to spend the entire month of March with the community. I began the application process, and in July I was invested with the habit, and took the religious name Matthias.

Years of prayer, study, and trust in the Lord went into this decision. The path of discernment was at times emotionally and spiritually draining, but the Lord was with me throughout. When I look back, all I can say is: thanks be to God!

I am from the western end of Massachusetts, and my immediate family is located there and in Astoria, NY. The majority of my extended family resides within the Archdiocese of Boston, on the eastern end of the state. One of my greatest struggles has been the distance between me and my family. The distance makes it difficult for my family to visit, and when they do, it is always a complicated affair. It is never as easy as a day trip or overnite visit; permission needs to be gained from employers, time and stress needs to be expended on air travel or long drives.

Prior to entering the monastery, if I was not living at home, I was living within two hours from home (whether in a dorm or my own house.) I was always close enough to visit my parents, or help with any needs or emergencies, and I was always able to see extended family during holiday outings. All of that is pretty much over now, and it is a tough pill to swallow. It is especially hard for me to see my brother monks, who may be from western PA originally, visit or be visited for all sorts of day gatherings. It is hard for me to accept that it will never be that easy for me to spend time with my loved ones.

One of God's greatest blessings on my monastic journey has been his hand guiding my discernment process. My journey began with the diocesan seminary, passed through explorations of various monastic houses and traditions, made a year long pit stop, and finally ended at St. Vincent. God's will for me had to be fulfilled in his time frame, not mine.  Had I visited St. Vincent in 1997, after leaving business college, I never would have entered. The life would have been completely foreign to me. It took the Lord threading me through the formative and educational path of seminary, personal discernment, monastic visits, and a dry year, to gradually prepare me to live out his will. Through my eyes, it was a long and arduous path, with some spots so draining and painful that I would not wish them upon anyone. Yet God, who sees the big picture, knew this was the only path that would bring me to where I needed to be, when it needed to be.

Throughout this process, the Lord has blessed me with wonderful spiritual directors. During seminary, I had two directors who were priests of the Archdiocese of Boston. Both were wonderfully holy and learned men, and they helped me during the bulk of my discernment period. They challenged me to look hard at the call that I was feeling, to see beyond the beauty of monastic life and recognize the hardships that every monk and nun faces daily.

Upon entering St. Vincent, I found a new director, a priest here in the monastery. I feel blessed to have come into contact with him, as he guides me through my gradual entrance into the monastic life and observance.

St. Benedict calls his monks to lives of prayer and work. For the professed monks, the work is usually in the form of a long term assignment. As a novice, I am not assigned a long term apostolate. My work comes in the form of afternoon work assignments. We receive these assignments Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and in a week we might have four completely different assignments. The work is as varied as stuffing envelopes for a monastery fund drive, to pulling weeds; cleaning the novice floor to shoveling snow; working at our gristmill to driving one of the monks to his doctor appointment.

In addition to these afternoon assignments, it is the responsibility of the novices to serve mass, to write and read the petitions for mass, and to wash some of the monastery cars on Saturday mornings. Individually, each novice is also assigned a few house jobs. Mine include setup and supply of the two monastery chapels, taking care of the votive lamp that burns at one of the monastery entrances (next to an icon of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica), and moving laundry carts into the stairwell landings of each floor on Saturday mornings.

The way I see it, I am a monk first, before anything else that I may do here. When looking towards the future, my first desire is to grow in my monastic observance. By the grace of God, I have made some strides in holiness and monastic observance since entering here, but I still feel that I have so much farther to go. The life of a Benedictine monk is one of constant conversion, always trying to grow in holiness and observance. I want to be more holy, more prayerful, a more committed monk and more observant of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict. That is my greatest desire, and what I am working at achieving, with the help of God.

Some time in the future, I would like to resume my studies towards the priesthood. I would like to serve this community in the capacity of priest; it would be a true and humbling honor. As for the apostolates that we serve, I am interested in seminary or college work (though not teaching!), I have some interest in library work, and since the early days of my years in the seminary college, I have had an interest in the military chaplaincy.

I am open to whatever needs the community might need me to fill. I do have personal interests and preferences, but as you read above, I am a monk first. The needs and desires of the community need to take precedence over mine. I look forward to being able to serve this monastic community.