For several years now, in the days leading up to the religious professions of the novices, the 3 novitiates of the Legion of Christ in Europe (Salamanca, Spain; Gozzano, Italy; and Neuötting-Alzgern, Germany) meet to socialize and also carry out the “month of work,” a stage of the Novitiate where they dedicate a month to practically live out the effort and sacrifice of physical work, thus opening this dimension of understanding for workers and laborers; the novices dedicate an entire month each year to physical work: agricultural tasks, masonry, plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, in the maintenance, remodeling, or expansion of their own formation houses.

This year, the month of work was dedicated to constructing an area for the care of young people and guests of the German Novitiate.

It was during these days of work that the novices also participated in the Corpus Christi procession, at the local church in Altötting (Germany). The procession was presided over by Mons. Wilhelm Schraml, emeritus bishop of the Diocese of Passau, who, upon seeing the novices and all who participated, commented that he was pleased to see a young and enthusiastic church. On the other hand, the parish priest of the church invited the novices to visit an exhibition of the Holy Shroud in the cloister, which the Knights of Malta are carrying around various sites in Germany.

Furthermore, during those days, the novices also took the opportunity to visit the former Dachau concentration camp, near Munich. In that place, about 3,000 clergy were imprisoned during the war, most of whom gave their lives for the faith.