Spring 2008
Kansas Monks
Brothers Gregory, Leven take avowed steps By Dan Madden
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Photo by Dan Madden
iving quietly alongside her son for 30 years, the Virgin Mary was a model disciple whose pattern of life is an example to each Christian, Abbot Barnabas Senecal told two young men making monastic vows at St. Benedict’s Abbey on Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. “There is a quiet side to being a Christian,” the Abbot said in his instruction to Brothers Gregory Dulmes and Leven Harton. “It is a pattern of life in which we learn acceptance, in which we learn to listen, in which we learn to be open and not closed.” He also noted that Mary was a woman who lived in a community in which she gained and gave support. “This is a pattern that every Christian lives,” he said, “within family, within parish and school community, and for some, within religious community.” Before a full Abbey Church, Brother Gregory professed his solemn vows, a lifetime commitment to St. Benedict’s Abbey. Brother Leven professed first vows, beginning the three-year period of formation before he may ask the community to accept him for solemn vows. The celebration was the culmination of a weekend in which Abbot Barnabas also received three young men into the Abbey’s novitiate. Nicholas Padley, Adam Wilczak and Stephen Watson entered the one-year novitiate, receiving the monastic names Philip Neri, John Paul and Maurus respectively. Four-years removed from
Brother Gregory Dulmes, left, and Brother Leven Harton extend their arms in exultation as the entire monastic community sings the suscipe at the Mass during which they professed their solemn and first vows, respectively.
his own novitiate entrance, Brother Gregory found the weight of his commitment to be profound. He said the part of the Rite of Profession that struck him was the moment when he lay prostrate on the floor before the altar and his fellow monks covered him in a funeral pall. Following the singing of a lengthy Litany of the Saints by all in attendance, he emerged from beneath the pall to profess his vows. “This was symbolic of dying to an old way of life and rising to a new one,” Brother Gregory said. “In a sense I had already been doing this by living as a monk, but this was making it permanent.” Although he noted that formation never really ends, and that a monk is always “developing, growing and praying,” he acknowledged a sense of accomplishment in fulfilling the stages of formation leading up to his profession.
“I’ve now committed my life to Jesus,” he said. “There are a lot of other things I could be doing right now. I could have a wife and children, my own house, a career, but the Lord has offered this and I have accepted it for whatever purpose he has for me.” Brother Leven’s lifetime commitment remains three years away, but first profession carries its own weight of commitment. While the novitiate was a serious promise, professing vows is a “whole new ballgame,” he said. “This is three years of giving myself to God in a way I’ve never done before and constantly examining how to do it better,” Brother Leven said. “But there is also a special grace that comes with it, a special union with God.” Abbot Barnabas vested each of the professing monks in a new garment. Brother
Gregory received the cuculla, a floor-length garment that symbolizes his acceptance as a solemnly professed member of the community. Upon his death, it is the garment in which each monk is buried. Brother Leven received the traditional hood worn by Benedictines to symbolize his new level of commitment to the community. Drawing a parallel with a new project on the horizon for Atchison, the Abbot said the celebration of profession is “as important as a new highway bridge is to the life of this city, so persons who build the bridge of our Benedictine community, from its past and present into its future, are welcomed and give us strength.
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