Interesting Obituary of an OSB Claustral Oblate

[Luigi]

This is from the Facebook page of Saint Leo Benedictine Abbey in Florida. 

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This remembrance doesn't say what he was or what he did before he entered the monastery, but clearly he had a conversion experience. He must've been 68 when he entered the monastery, and lived there for 14 years or so.  There are all kinds of interesting people in monasteries...

[Guest]

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 There are all kinds of interesting people in monasteries...

[Chiquitunga]

Like Alessandro Serenelli

http://mariagoretti.com/the-murderer/

[Guest]

I think it is a tribute to the Capuchin order that they accepted  someone as notorious as Alessandro as a lay brother who was fully repentant of his past, turned his life around and died in the Peace of Christ.  He must have been well though of in his community leadership to be given the responsibilities in the life that he was given.  He entered in 2004 and died in May this year.  I think that 14 years in a religious community would illustrate that he did have a Graced and holy religious vocation.

Not all in monastic life nor in the apostolic orders have had lily white pasts and one does not have to have had a lily white past to be called to a religious vocation, although most probably religious orders do ask a period of faithfulness before entering.  I think that some religious orders, although not many to my knowledge, do ask virginity.

From the article on Alessandro in @Chiquitunga's post: "with this, I mean that we monks come from a long line of sinners"

.......and don't we all! 

"He was one of us that came to know the Grace of God".

The Grace of God has no barriers whatsoever.

[NadaTeTurbe]

Br Grégoire from the Cistercian Abbey of Sainte Marie du Désert (France). Spent more than 20 years in jail for fighting, stealing, evading jail, etc. He was converted by reading apologetic in prison and entered the cistercian abbey ; he was a true mystic who loved St John of the Cross. He worked to welcome the host at the abbey.