Father Robert Barnes guides students and faculty at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va.
In the basement of Shenandoah University's Goodson Chapel one chilly November Sunday morning, John Copenhaver, a tall, white-haired professor of philosophy and religion, folded at the waist to demonstrate how to bow like a monk. The eight students clustered around him watched closely. One, taking stock of the incredulous faces around him, volunteered the group's unofficial credo: When in doubt, "find an old person, and do what they do."
Outside, a van stocked with apple-cider doughnuts was waiting to take them to the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va. While all the students were Christian, it would be their first Mass...
