Looking to begin your 2026 with a spiritual challenge from friars and monks?
Monk Mindset, a newly released app that aims to bring the monastic spiritual tradition into the average man's day-to-day life, has announced it's 2026 New Year challenge. Guided by 3 monks & friars, the app pushes the user to set 4 monastic-inspired commitments to fuel the upcoming year.
It's founder, John Cannon, came up with the idea after discerning out of the Carmelite monastery himself.
JOHN CANNON
Founder, Monk Mindset
It was after I discerned out, I also found that people were, especially non-Catholics were, very interested in the fact that I was in a monastery. You know, these are the same people who might not be that interested in the fact that I was in formation to be a priest – that wasn't as interesting to them as the fact that I was in a monastery.
And I found that they were very open to learning from the Christian monastic spiritual tradition, and may not be as necessarily open to learning you know about Catholicism, they had a lot of biases against Catholicism.
Recognizing the attraction of the monastic tradition especially in contrast to modern lifestyles, Monk Mindset was created with the aim to bring users into the monastic spiritual and work tradition with reminders to turn off social media, to pray multiple times a day, or listen to a spiritual reflection.
JOHN CANNON
Founder, Monk Mindset
So, the idea behind monk mindset is really to lift up and lift out this content and this wisdom in an organized way that can be relatable and accessible to a much broader audience.
And thus far, the initiatives have been a great success.
JOHN CANNON
Founder, Monk Mindset
So, it grew pretty quickly over the past year to 15 months. You know now it reaches millions of people all across our social platforms, and it's maybe like a quarter million people that follow the the accounts and so it's, you know, struck a chord and found that people are really interested in it.
So while it may be the case that not everyone is called to the habit, it appears that there are still many in the modern age interested in living the spiritual habits of the monastic tradition.
