Monastic Laundry

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 first walked the hallowed halls of Chaminade High School on a tour while I was still in the eighth grade. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go to high school at that point, only that Catholic school seemed a certainty. I remember the day I received my acceptance letter to Chaminade though, as the prestigious high school was at the very top of my list, not least of all because my closest friends from grade school were already committed to going there. As I discussed in a previous blog , my time as a student at Chaminade was sadly short-lived, as I failed out at the end of my very first year there (failing is anything below 75, so a 73, a 74, and a Fail in my Pass/Fail music course sealed my fate). Though they allowed me to take two summer school courses at the school that summer, I eventually had to say goodbye to the place forever –or so I thought. Just three years later, now a graduate of Kellenberg High School in Uniondale (run by the same religious order), I was back again...

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 ...

Chaminade High School and I share a sometimes bumpy but ultimately rewarding past. The very short version of the story, which I'll mention here briefly, is that I attended the school my freshman year before promptly failing out. I was crushed, and my life was over, as far as I was concerned. My three best friends went to Chaminade, and several more besides, so I felt like a total failure not just in school but in life as well. My friends were still on the inside, and I was now on the outside, no longer allowed to attend classes there. I was only 15 years old, a smart but very fragile kid, so the trauma of failing out scarred me good. Fast forward only three years later though, and that same shy boy who'd failed out and was told he could no longer be a student at the school was now about to live there, with plans to possibly teach there one day too. Talk about a quick turnaround. The inspirational story I'd one day tell my students was already half-written in my head. ...

Once I knew I'd be joining the brothers who live and teach at Chaminade High School, I promptly received a two-page Word document outlining exactly what clothes I would need to bring with me when I moved in. I was really excited by the list too! My mother, though? Yeah, not so much. She took one look at the very long list, provided to us sometime in the end of May or early June, and her eyes bulged out with shock. It was clear we had a lot of shopping to do, and she personally had a lot of money she'd need to spend besides. As I'm one of eleven children and my parents were far from wealthy, the upfront costs were staggering. Though I no longer have the actual list, it read something like this: Two black suits, two black ties, five white long-sleeve Oxford shirts, five white short-sleeve Oxford shirts, two black belts, two pairs of black shoes with laces, a pack of black cotton socks, a pack of white undershirts, a pack of underwear, a few casual shirts, a few ...

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 ...