Stephen Grenache

email: SGrenache@Adelphia.net

My name is Stephen Grenache and Ilived at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont for nine months as a brother. I also lived at Saint Josephs Abbey in Spencer Mass (Trappist) for about 18 months. This was all in the last 7 or 8 years (writing this in 2001). I continue my journey and am looking into the Trappist life again out in Colorado.

My time at the Charterhouse was something I felt I had to do to put the whole solitude "thing" behind me. I believe im a Trappist at heart but spend a little time in a Trappist monastery and see if solitude doesnt become a very seductive reason to leave.

Solitude can be a very purifying and beautiful way of loving the Lord IF that is where you are called. If not its just solitude, if not something less. I have a real capacity for solitude and my stay there was, at times, glorious. As the months went by though I began to feel that, even though I had a "natural" inclination to that sort of life, it wasn't the place that the Lord was really calling me.

I remember the brothers well and praise our Lord for their sacrifice and devotion. Their gift is total. Pax