London, England - THE BBC2 series, The Monastery, has led to an upsurge in interest in the religious life, says the religious community in which the programmes were filmed.
The three-part series follows the experiences of five men, who had little experience of Roman Catholicism or monastic life, as they spend 40 days and 40 nights living alongside the 22 Benedictine monks at Worth Abbey, near Crawley in Sussex. After the first broadcast, the abbey's website received more than 10,000 hits in two days. A dozen people a day signed up for retreats.
The abbot, Fr Christopher Jamison, said that the response had taken him by surprise. "We are particularly pleased by the numbers enquiring about joining the Church or coming on one of our retreats," he said last week. "We saw in this project an opportunity to discover what our way of life offers to people today who do not share our beliefs." He hoped that the participants would discover "hidden depths in life, and, in those hidden depths, discover God".
Fr Luke, who was responsible for the day-to-day care of the five volunteers, spoke of how they had come with "a generous spirit", but had been surprised at how demanding community life was. They had all experienced a major change in their approach to life, he said.
At the end of the broadcast, viewers were invited to phone the BBC Action Line, if they wished to discuss any of the issues it raised. The line received several hundred calls. "Some people have been interested in vocations. We have passed them on to the Catholic Enquiry service and other appropriate agencies," said a spokeswoman for the BBC.
Tony Burke, one of the five participants, said that he had come to the monastery believing that the religious life was for old people trying to escape from reality.
"Standing in the Lady Chapel at night, listening to Salve Regina being sung en masse in Latin, enveloped me like a potent elixir, and drove away any cynicism or doubt of these men's integrity and intent," he wrote on the Worth Abbey website.
"Within a few days," he continued, "I was engaging in the monastic process from the heart, inspired by this intangible and inexplicable thing which is faith, and love of God, expressed through prayer and community living."
The final episode will be shown next Tuesday.