Video: Alumnus Makes Solemn Profession with Norbertine Order

On June 24, after nearly seven years of formation, Frater Moses Pavel Luke Blain, O. Praem. (’14), made his solemn profession as a member of the Norbertine Order, vowing to persevere forever in the pursuit of poverty, chastity, and obedience at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. (Video of the Mass of Solemn Profession is available in the player below.)

In that perseverance, Frater Moses will rely on God’s grace, especially through the companionship of his new Norbertine family, many of whom share his roots at Thomas Aquinas College. He will also have the constant prayers and support of his natural family, who joyfully witnessed his profession.

As the culminating moment in religious discernment, Frater Moses’s ceremony was not unlike a wedding, “because it has a sense of finality that even becoming a priest or deacon doesn’t have,” remarked his sister Pauline Blain (’23). But, she noted, the parallels to marriage did not stop there. “Watching his face, I could tell that he was so in love, so happy to be giving his life to God.”

The canon’s profession made a comparable impression on his many friends, among them Carter Farrier (’14), who said, “It was an inestimable joy to watch our friend and classmate enter a monastic community which has remained steadfast in its adherence to the modern magisterium.”

But solemn profession was only one of the milestones which Frater Moses passed in June. Less than a week later, he was ordained to the transitional diaconate at the hands of the Most Rev. Timothy E. Freyer, Auxiliary Bishop of Orange County, bringing him one step closer to the priesthood. Deo gratias!