Page 27 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

A VOCAI'ION PROBLEIVI 7

rigorous kind, and I began to regulate my life accord-
ing to my program. At the same time tr tried seriously
to be admitted to a monastery.
"I would have liked to have been accepted at La
Trappe. I had learned about that monastery-thanks
to the conversations I had sometimes with a holy lay
brother. It had been suppressed in the French Revolu-
tion, and the holy man i,is compelled to earn his living
by daily work in the neighborhood of my village. I often
went to pay him a visit. His counsels and experience
did a lot for my vocation. For a period of four years I
tried by all means to be admitted. My efiorts were in
vain. Political circumstances, laws forbidding all mon-
asteries and Religious Orders, besides a bodily defect,
were the obstacles.*
"During this time I had been asked by some pious
ladies to assist them in the teaching of catechism. My
confessor, a holy Capuchin, learning of my catechetical
work, once said, 'Well, that is perhaps the work that
the Lord wants you to do.'
"For my part, I considered that work as a kind of
pastime until I could realize my plan.
"As a matter of fact, I experienced little success in
teaching. I had to confess that these holy souls, these
catechists, had far more talent than I had in handling
those children. However, I devoted about five years
to that apostolate of elementary Christian Doctrine."

* In no other place in the data on Ryken is there any refer.
ence to this "bodily defect."