Monastic Laundry

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 ...

Okay. So before we go any further, I think it'd be helpful at this early stage of the blog if I first explained to you exactly what a brother is. This should serve as a helpful primer going forward. Basically, a Roman Catholic brother is a man who dedicates his life to God, lives in a community with other men (usually called a monastery or a brothers' house), and who takes the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Some orders require other vows or promises, but these are the basic but challenging few. The easiest way to understand this kind of a calling is to look at the life of a nun. A nun, or a sister, is very much the same as a brother or a monk, except they are women who live in a convent. Their vows are usually the same, their lives are often the same too, and they choose different ministries depending on their religious order (teaching, working with the poor and homeless, or serving in various other church ministries). Nuns wear a religious habit, which as yo...

My name was Brother Sean, and I lived at Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York from June 29, 1993 to July 19, 1997. I was a Marianist Brother, a member of a Roman Catholic religious order called the Society of Mary. Over the course of many blog entries I'll share here, I will take you through my time as a monk. I'll share with you many of my diary pages from that time too, letters I exchanged with family, friends, and teachers, and help you understand what my time there was really like. I have written about my experiences as a monk several times before, most notably in a fictional book inspired by my time at Chaminade called Outside In , but until now, I have never shared my full story, warts and all. It's time. It's time now for me to share my life, and in some ways, respectfully, the lives of others as well. My aim is not to defame or hurt anyone, but simply to share my truth in the context it deserves to be shared. My exit from the monastery was quick ...