Monastic Laundry

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...

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...

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 ...

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...