22: Candles in the Dark

If I could sneak back into the monastery for just one more hour, there is no other hour in time I'd rather choose than the Easter Vigil service at Chaminade High School. Forty-four men processing single file through the monastery lit only by candles? It gave me chills every time!

I was only a monk for four years of my life, but the environment and the people I lived with changed me forever (and for the better). Even so, my time there was cut short in a most unnatural, very unkind and thoroughly unhappy way. I was robbed of all sense of normal closure by being defrocked without warning one day, so now I'm-- Well, I'm like a ghost: part of me is still there, and always will be.

Of all the weeks on the liturgical calendar, Holy Week sits high atop my list of personal favorites. Today I reminisce on some of the traditions I recall and loved most. While some have changed since I left, others surely remain.

Standing at the entrance to the chapel at the Easter Vigil service.
From the Meribah Province Instagram account.

Holy Thursday

For lunch, we had tater tots. I've forgotten what the main course or courses were, but the tater tots are unforgettable. When you only get something once a year, you remember it.

We were on retreat this week, so after lunch, I may have had chores to do and probably some homework for my college classes, but there was definitely a video to watch via the closed-circuit television in my room. Sad to say, the powers that be at the time felt the ultra-right, ultra-hateful John Hagee was appropriate to watch on retreat. Thankfully, others balanced him out, like Father Benedict Groeschel, who while still quite conservative was at least gentle, smart, and funny in equal measure.

At mass, there was the traditional washing of the feet for a few pre-selected brothers in the front row, followed by the traditional Passover Seder meal in the dining room. The youngest brother in the community, someone from my class, was tasked with asking the oldest brother the special questions, including, "Why is this night different from every other night?"

Ironically, though our class of aspirants included a "Benjamin", he was not the youngest, and since our oldest, Brother Joe Trageser, was between 88 and 92 when I knew him, he was deemed too old to do the readings. He could have easily done it the first two years I was with them (even if it took him a little longer or he got help), but someone decided Fr. Frank, the second oldest and the province's co-founder, would do it instead.

We all read from little booklets at our seats in the large downstairs dining room, and when the miniature post-chapel service was over, we ate. For dessert, I believe it was either Brother John Gerard and/or Brother Joseph Anthony who made a Boston Cream Pie, although it could also have been Brother Tom, Father Tom, Brother Timothy, or Brother Roger. The detail escapes me at the moment.


Good Friday

We had mass every single day I was a brother. Every day except Good Friday, as I recall, when we instead had different kinds of services to commemorate such a holy day. A few of the brothers and priests read the passion narrative, and the altar was stripped completely, so no tablecloth or decorations anywhere.

After breakfast, we returned to our rooms to watch a program and have some quiet meditation time, and from 12 to 3, we observed a holy silence to commemorate Jesus's three hours on the cross. There was no talking at all permitted during this time, and as lunch was from 12-12:30, we had to eat together quietly without speaking to one another. If a brother wanted you to pass a pitcher of water, he might mouth his request in your direction, and you'd smile and hand it to him, but that was it. The same was true for cleanup. Forty men washing dishes and tidying up the kitchen and dining room in total silence. There were occasionally instances where something funny happened, like old Brother Joe's hearing aid squeaking or someone dropping his fork too loudly, and I'd find myself stifling a laugh as I wiped away the smile from my face as well, but I certainly wasn't alone, as even some of the brothers in their 50s and 60s were smiling at those times too.

In the evening, we probably had a fish dinner and either no alcohol or only wine.


Holy Saturday

This was the day. We were still on retreat, but there was time allotted for work each day, as I recall, and my job was cleaning the stairs from the lowest level of the school by the bookstore all the way up to the third floor. I was allergic to dust and not yet aware that a simple allergy pill could make my life better, so I sneezed my way through clouds of dust, grateful to be done by the time it was all over. I added this fact and several more stories about my monastic experience of Holy Week in my fictional book about my time there, Outside In.

The stairwell was used all the time, and I'm fairly certain the school's custodians cleaned the flight of stairs that went from the chapel to the bookstore, but I saw that section as a happy extension of my duties, especially as there was forever cleaning to be done. I cleaned all the window panes on the doors on each level too, where at the entrance to the school nearest the chapel and monastery, hundreds of fingerprints welcomed me from students who pushed the doors open on the glass rather than on the doors themselves. To this day, I never push on a door's glass pane, forever thinking that someone needs to constantly wipe that down.

It was these stairs however that played such an important role in my favorite ritual. At dusk, the Easter candle was lit and all of the brothers lit their candle from it in turn. We chanted and prayed inside the chapel, and then followed the Easter candle up to the third floor of the monastery in darkness, save for our candles. From there, we turned into the third floor hallway of the monastery and continued singing or praying or both (another detail that's long since escaped me) as we walked the length of the monastery before ascending one more level to the Star Room, our fully enclosed rooftop living room. 

It was the most monk-like ceremony we enjoyed all year long, and the only thing that came remotely close to that was the shared feeling of solemn ceremony when we sang together at funerals for family members of the brothers and other alumni family funerals.

After the ritual itself, we partied! Full bar, big meal, and lots of joyful conversation.


Easter Sunday

The next morning, we didn't have mass until 10:30 or 11, but it was out at our retreat house in Muttontown, a 20-minute drive from the monastery, so as we always did on days like that, we got in a bunch of vans, caravans, and cars (we always had enough to shuttle all 44 of us) and drove to Meribah, the name of our province as well our 15-acre retreat property. The large house was custom modified by the brothers themselves to include a large chapel and a dining room that fit everyone comfortably.

From the chapel, we'd celebrate mass together on Easter Sunday and other special occasions, and in the warmer weather, we would have mass outdoors surrounding a cross and altar that stood there all year long. Student and alumni groups used the property for retreats as well. There's really nothing quite like attending mass with God's great beauty on full display just beyond the large glass windows!

As I said at the start, I'm like a ghost. Part of me is still there, and it seems I always will be. I didn't end up giving my whole life to the church as I planned, but I do feel I both gave and enjoyed a lifetime's worth of experience within those four short years. They changed me forever.


Coming Next Time: April 1994 Letter to a Friend