Thirty-year-old Bruno Mori leaves Judith, the woman he loves, for the Sebastians, a religious order of monks. She challenges his motivation: Why discard an assured position in finance? Why seek ideals elsewhere when he can live them with her and her love? Is he confused?

The pious and tightly-knit men of the Sebastian community welcome Bruno to the Novitiate of St. Dismas in the hills of upstate New York, unaware of his personal conflicts and lack of preparation for monastic life. His later discovery of personal letters to a 19th century monk at St. Dismas and unsettling supernatural appearances begin to undermine Bruno's new life until the circumstances of his father’s death and his care for a dying monk slowly replace his doubts with self-realization.