Monastic Laundry

"All too often, a kind of workaholism takes over and makes of religious life a series of tasks to be performed and duties to be undertaken." -Br. Robert C. Berger, FSC (a teacher of mine at Manhattan College), in the Spring 1994 Review for Religious 5/2/94 Dear Diary,      I have been living at Chaminade High School for 10 months and three days. Does it feel like it's been 10 months and three days? Yes, but I now realize that though it is a short period of time, I'm thankful for every minute of it--both good and bad. John reminded me today to keep my head on straight and don't go to extremes--between cynicism and over pietistical bullshit. He was straight with me and I thanked him for it. It is but another thing for me to keep in mind and remember always.       Organization is something I need right now. With tests coming, I have to buckle down and get to work. With God's love and help, which I know I have, I'll do great on my tests and I'...

Today I'm sharing parts of two letters I wrote to my friend Brendan in late winter and early spring of 1994. I've edited out some private info, but otherwise sharing the second one in full, and just a short exchange from the first, a story which hopefully shows how fun the monastery was at times. In between the two is a single line from a letter my friend wrote to me in April of 1994, one which is just as poignant now as it was then. I saved everything , so while I'm not sharing each letter I received or sent in that time, it's been really nice rereading old correspondence as I prepare these reflections. The name's Brennan. Brother Brennan. (Brother Sean more often though back then.) Quick refresher: I attended Chaminade High School as a freshman, failed out at the end of the school year, and then enrolled in Kellenberg Memorial High School the summer before my sophomore year. Both high schools are run by the Marianists (Society of Mary/S.M.), a religious order...

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...

I was only "Brother Sean" for a red hair over four years, so while priests and religious who give their whole lives to similar missions may be smug to my perspective, it really comes down to this: you can kick the boy out of the monastery, but you can't kick the monastery out of the boy. Who I am is forever changed because of those four years, and more succinctly, because of who I chose to become in all the years since. March 31, 1994 Dear Brother George Edward,      Throughout the past nine months, I have had the opportunity of forming many friendships; friendships with my Brothers, friendship with God, and friendship with myself.   I am very grateful for the blessings that I have received and for the opportunity to grow more fully in the life of Jesus Christ.   Though I have had some stumbling blocks along the way, I have learned to see them as stepping stones on the sometimes bumpy path of religious life.      I...

My sincere apologies for the extra long delay in posting a new update here. I'm back on this project again now, so keep an eye out! At this point in my story, it's March of 1994. I'd been living in the monastery since June of 1993. On March 16, 1994, 27 years to the day as I post this online , I passed my road test on my first try, I got a temporary license, and then received my official driver's license soon after. As I'd been depending on my friends Lex, Mark, and Brendan for rides throughout high school, and needed my fellow Marianist Brothers, old and young alike, to drive me anywhere once I entered the community, it was a huge relief to put this behind me at last. Brother Michael Gillen (my Assistant Novice Master) taught me how to drive--on a stick shift, no less--and I was able to take a night class at a Mineola driving school just a few blocks from the Brothers' house. This was Lent of 1994, and I would soon experience my first retreat as a monk. Twice a...

I wasn't supposed to be there when it happened. My Assistant Novice Master probably scheduled me to be somewhere in the high school nowhere near the brothers' house that day at that exact time. As things happen though, there I was. I ran up the main stairs of the monastery toward my bedroom on the second floor, perhaps to grab something quick from my room, and as soon as I reached the top of the landing and turned right, Joe came toward me from my left. He was carrying a large box filled to the brim with things, so I instinctively asked him, "Hey, need some help?" Some words slip from our lips and disappear forever, while others are etched into history. These words I spoke in that moment without thinking were something closer to the second kind, and they were destined to haunt me in the days and weeks ahead. (And hell, years too, I guess. Hence this entry.) "No, I've got it," he said, smiling curtly before continuing along his way. I didn't wonder wh...

 [Housekeeping note: no post here next week. Check back again on Wednesday, November 11th.] By this point of my life, 18 years old, I knew. I knew the one thing I started dreading in 7th grade and began to slightly accept by 9th grade was not ever going away. I knew I wasn't into girls. The thing is (don't laugh), by choosing to live a life of chastity, I honestly thought about it more in terms of giving up the females I wasn't into rather than the males I was into. A life with no heterosexual love? Pfft. I can do that. I know this seems illogical, but doing anything with another guy was an impossibility anyway, as far as I was concerned. This was the early 90s, and things were extremely different (and much more difficult) back then. As a thoroughly naive teenager who up until that point assumed his homosexual leanings would either disappear on their own or at least agree to stay bottled up inside him forever and ever, the stubborn yearnings of my libido genuinely took m...

I come from a very large family, so moving into a household with 33 other people wasn't as big a jump as it would be for some others. Even so, being physically away from everyone all of a sudden, with several layers of communication silence stacked up between us as well, was not easy to get used to. Here are a few examples of the ways my family and friends acknowledged this wall that went up between us. Remember, this was before email, so I sent and received many actual letters back then instead. The dates you see are the date they wrote the letter, not the date I received it. July 2, 1993 letter from my mother:    Three days have passed since you entered your new life, and I'm so anxious to hear from you. Are you adjusting to your new schedule and chores? Daddy and I were very impressed with the residence and residents. I was telling everybody about some of the rooms--yours, the parlor with parrot and cockatiels, the dining room, and of course the beautifully large living ro...

Okay. So put yourself in my shiny black shoes for a moment here. You're only 18 years old, and you've made what we can all agree is a monumental decision about the rest of your life, a commitment that means giving up almost everything you knew before in service to the church you love. You've learned about the place you now live and you've met all the men with whom you'll be sharing coffee every day for the rest of your life, you've gotten used to the schedule and accepted the realities of poverty, chastity, and obedience too, at least in so much as you can understand them all at this point in time. And then, very slowly, things start to change. It's now the fall of 1993, and you've started school at Manhattan College in the Bronx. You and four other young brothers drive up there each day after morning prayer, mass, and breakfast with the community. School runs from roughly 9 AM until after 4, when you all meet at the red caravan in the parking lot for ...

This blog has been on hiatus since March, but I'm delighted to relaunch it here with the below reflections from my first year as Brother Sean. One quick clarification before I go on. Because I only lived in a monastery for four years, and because I am no longer a practicing Catholic, it's entirely possible there are people out there who see me as using the church to boost my résumé and my ego. This is a completely fair but untrue assertion. I celebrate my four years as a monk because my time and experience there hurt me so very deeply. While this may sound like a completely illogical and contradictory statement, the truth is simply this: I learned and grew as both a human and a soul more in those four years than in any other four years before or since, and though some of it was quite painful--unnecessarily so--I am extremely grateful for all the good that came of it, and the good people I got to know and live with as well! If anyone out there thinks I'm just puffing myself ...

It was late August 1993 when the inevitable finally occurred. I'd only been living in the monastery for about six weeks, but this was a small eternity, so leaving home with just my fellow young brothers was quite an unusual experience. Our destination? Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, the place we'd be attending school for the next four years. Joe, two years older than the four of us who had just joined the order, helped us out so much our first year, as he'd already gone through everything we were still experiencing: all the nerves, all the newness, and everything else that came with joining a conservative Roman Catholic monastery as a teenage boy. Since Joe was beginning his junior year of college and we were each beginning our freshman year, he was a true "big brother" to us all. He drove us up to the college, showed us where we needed to park each day, and then introduced us around campus whenever he could too. Now you've gotta remember, ...