Manny and Jessica Archuleta have a blog called Every Home a Monastery. That name reflects the central purpose of their life together as a married couple and parents of children — “striving to live the Christian life with monasticism as our reference point.” The Archuletas are monastic associates — something like oblates — of Holy Resurrection Monastery in St. Nazianz, Wisconsin, a men’s monastic community of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. I wrote about my visit there for the September 6, 2015 issue of The Living Church.
Manny and Jessica have been connected to the monastery for a very long time. The abbot, Father Nicholas, married them almost seventeen years ago. They even moved across the country to stay close to the monastic community — from southern California, where the monastery started out, to Wisconsin, where the monks moved in 2011. Besides their own blog, Jessica also contributes regularly to another, The Catholic Exchange. She has written a series of reflections there on monastic virtues, called Lessons from a Monastery.
I met them both when I visited Holy Resurrection. I was surprised at how unaffected and unpretentious they both were, more ordinary and unpresuming than their devotion to monasticism had led me to expect they might be. Talking to them was easy. I felt no push to make an impression or to seem any holier or better or more observant than I really am. We talked mostly about practicing the faith as Byzantine Catholics and about passing it on to our children. I was thankful to hear their thoughts, since they have considerably more experience in both departments.
Every Home a Monastery recently marked its first year, and they have some new projects in the works. Manny is planning a series of podcasts called Tomatoes in Tone Five and they are also starting a feature about the visitors they meet at the monastery called Pilgrims of St. Nazianz, inspired by Humans of New York. I am sure that I will take it all in. I remain thankful to hear their thoughts, and look forward to another year of the blog.
Caleb Congrove’s other posts may be found here. The featured image is from the website of Holy Resurrection Monastery.
Caleb Congrove is a high school teacher in Ohio and a father of three. A layman, he belongs to a Greek Catholic parish.
