Monastic Laundry

I was 18 years old. I was a good kid, smart and fiercely dedicated to serving God too, but still just a kid. A teenager! I had graduated from Kellenberg High School so recently, I hadn't even gotten my yearbook yet, but suddenly I'm posing for pictures with my friends and family members wearing "the suit". Welcome back to the blog! If you're just joining me here for the first time, please click the title at the top to go anywhere you want. I'm telling this story in chronological order for the most part, but you can start reading the blog entries anywhere you'd like, including this one right here. Since my closest friends at the time had just graduated from Chaminade High School, and they were all taught by the same men I now lived with, prayed with, ate with, and even drank with, this situation was unique to say the least. They'd seen these monks day in and day out for the last four years of their lives, always dressed in the same simple black s

It's time I broach a touchy subject here, one that could make at least some of you practically swell with shock. Blogging is quite masturbatory by nature, as all you're doing week in and week out is focusing on yourself, so it can be quite challenging at times not pausing to stroke your ego now and then anyway. Even so, I pray you won't think me a jerk, and please allow me this one week to share some hard truths from the dark corners of my room in the monastery. I'm not sure how else to paint the picture for you except this... Even though I lived in a modern-day monastery more often referred to as the brothers house, this was still very much a holy place as far as I was concerned, so committing any kind of unholy act there was just the furthest thing from my mind, especially in my first two months there. Despite this, I was soon enough faced with what I can only describe as a medical situation. I foolishly assumed when I gave my life over to God and put on m

Get yourself a trade, our elders used to say. Education can only get you so far. You need to have practical real-world skills too, if only as a backup plan. Our parents and grandparents learned this lesson for themselves, and that's why they kept repeating it over and over again in our youth. Learn how to fix people's pipes, they'd say, tune up their cars, cook their meals, get their power on, or even mend their shirts–just find work you can do well, and then stick to it. In the months after I joined the monastery, I was immersed in a litany of cool jobs I never in a million years thought I'd learn how to do. And while I can't honestly say I've retained all the info I learned back then, I'm grateful for all I have remembered ever since. I learned how to paint rooms, lay carpet, re-tile bathrooms, install hand dryers, sew vestments, set up wood and kindling for a fire, decorate rooms, run electrical lines for new classrooms and chapels, drive a stick shi

I went through a lot of needless crap in my years as Brother Sean, but none of my worst moments there were ever the fault of my fellow young brothers. We were caught up in that crazy life together, after all, and just trying to do our best under some very difficult circumstances. Though our individual friendships sometimes strained, the bonds that united us were so much stronger than any differences in opinion, and I'm forever grateful for the many good times we shared back then. Before I joined the Marianist community in Mineola (pronounced Mini-oh-luh), the brothers' recent track record for new recruits wasn't very strong. There were a bunch of brothers who'd graduated high school in the 70s and 80s, and one two years ahead of us who graduated in 1991. Four of us joined my year, 1993, another joined two years later, and one joined three years after us. Of the seven who joined between 1991 and 1996, only one is still there. I may be mistaken, but I don't