Monastic Laundry

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...

Sharing some delicious quotes and personal reflections today about the book Care of the Soul , but first, here's a letter I wrote to my sister Esther in California. Note who the speakers were at the communion breakfasts we hosted in the high school that year. March 5, 1994 Dear Esther,      I know this is not the same as a birthday card, but I wanted to write to you anyway. How are things with you? Do you enjoy living in the new apartment? How is your car running? (You may prefer to answer these questions to yourself... answering out loud will probably make others think that you are crazy)      Well, all is well with me. I am doing well with my studies at Manhattan College and am looking forward to a successful semester. I am currently listed as undecided for my major, although I intend to major in English Literature. I have not begun any of my studies for my major, so I will begin to do so in the fall of 1995. This is because beginnin...

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...