On Saturday 7 October 2023 our Brother Benedict Joseph made his solemn profession as a Benedictine monk of Pluscarden.

Br. Benedict Joseph was born in 1966 in Iowa U.S.A.

A convert to the Catholic Faith, he entered the international Community of St. John, and made his final profession with them. After some years, including postings in Senegal and in the Netherlands, he felt a call to a more strictly monastic form of life, and eventually requested a transfer to Pluscarden Abbey. According to the law of the Church, such a transfer has to include not only permission from the former Institute, but also a period of trial, formation and probation. In this case, the trial period included a spell at our daughter house of Petersham, Massachusetts.

While with us Br. Benedict Joseph has undertaken a number of works, most notably in the kitchen. He has also continued the theological studies he had previously begun.

No immediate family was able to come for the Profession, but our Brother was supported at the Mass by the presence (among others) of the American Dominican Sisters of Elgin, and some members of the Community of St. John resident in Aberdeen, and Fr. Johannes Elias, a former confrere in the Community of St. John who came from the Hague especially for the profession.