The Admissions Board is made up of the members of the Abbey Vocation Committee, along with Abbot, Prior, and Sub-prior of the monastery. All the members of the Admission Board review the applicant's completed file. A recommendation by the Admissions Board is made to the Abbot as to the applicants' apparent ability to live in community at this time and eventually become a permanent member. The Abbot makes the decision to admit, defer, or not admit and notifies the applicant of his decision. In all this we must continually seek above all how God is working in our lives.
Prayer is of paramount importance.
The Affiliate Stage is for a man interested in discerning more seriously his call to join the Benedictines at St. Mary's Abbey. He is encouraged to visit the monastery several times to become acquainted with the lifestyle and charism and to discuss with members of the Abbey Vocation Committee his desire to discern more seriously a monastic vocation. Upon the mutual discernment of both the interested man and the Abbey Vocation Committee that St. Mary's Abbey may indeed be the place of God's choice of the individual, the interested man may apply for entrance into the Postulancy Program. The Postulancy Program is for men who have come to the decision that a Benedictine vocation at St. Mary's Abbey may indeed be God's will for him and resides with the monastic community for six months in the novitiate as a postulant. During this period of discernment the postulant is engaged in theological inquiry through a variety of classes and is exposed the mission and ministries of this monastic community.