Monk Life + Winter 2015

MONK LIFE From the Vocations Office of Saint Meinrad Archabbey

Year of Consecrated Life Monk Spotlight: Br. André DeDecker

Benedictine Perspectives: Living a Life of Prayer

Winter 2015 • No. 4

MONK LIFE On the cover: Br. André DeDecker, while holding his vow chart, prepares to process into the Archabbey Church.

FEATURES 2.....................................................From the Vocation Director 4-5............................................................Year of Consecrated Life 6-8...........................................................................Monk Spotlight 9-10....................................................Benedictine Perspectives 11 ................................................................Ministry Spotlight

This online publication can be viewed at www.saintmeinrad.org/monk-life Produced by the Vocations Office and the Communications Office of Saint Meinrad Archabbey.

Vocations Office, Saint Meinrad Archabbey 100 Hill Drive, St. Meinrad, IN 47577 vocations@saintmeinrad.org, www.saintmeinrad.org (812) 357-6318 © 2015

From the Vocation Director Br. John Mark Falkenhain, OSB Last year, Pope Francis announced that this coming year would be the Year of Consecrated Life.

That’s exciting.

Consecrated life includes those men and women living in monastic and apostolic religious orders, as well as those who live in secular institutes and societies of apostolic life.

These distinctions can be a little confusing, but all these forms of life in the Church share the common goal of making Christ and the Kingdom of God present in our world right now by practicing the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience. That is our charism, our gift to the Church.

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A charism is a gift that is both received and then given. As monks, we have discerned that God has called us to this life and that He has given us the desire, the grace, the understanding and the fortitude to live it out. Once we have received or accepted the gift of our vocation as monks, our consecrated lives, in turn, become a gift to the Church and the world – a particular witness that only monks give.

All of us who have professed vows in the monastery have said, “This is who I am and who I am going to be for the Church.” The result of our discernment is that we have both limited and freed ourselves. As monks, we won’t marry or have children. We have given up the single life and we have ruled out being diocesan priests.

Our choice limits our ability to serve out in “the world” – in the marketplace, the sports arena, and the social life of city and town. But having made our choice, we know who we are and we have the freedom to give our lives to the world as only monks do: stepping a little aside, cultivating silence, dwelling on the Word of God in our liturgy and our lectio, cultivating beauty for the glory of God, providing a foretaste of what heaven might look like, and serving God and the Church from our privileged spot on top of our Holy Hill.

When I first began considering religious life in high school, I remember asking one of my teachers if he thought it made sense for me to want to be a religious brother.

He responded, “If not you, who?”

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Pope Francis’ proclamation of the upcoming Year of Consecrated Life is a reminder to us all of the richness of the different vocations that make up the Church, the body of Christ. Just as the Church and the world need young men and women to marry and to work at being the very best spouses and parents they can be, so does the Church need men and women who will choose to consecrate (set aside and make holy) their lives to give witness to the Kingdom to come.

Monks enjoy coffee together in Jack’s, the on-campus coffee shop.

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I still repeat that phrase to myself. I pull it out when my enthusiasm begins to fade or when the challenges of this life stack up and leave me tempted to water down my monastic observance by skipping prayer, missing common meals, not doing my lectio, or absenting myself from community life. I remind myself: “If not you, who? Who will live the life of the monk if I don’t? Who else is going to give that gift?” It’s my gift to give now, my charism, my responsibility.

Pilgrims hike up to Monte Cassino Shrine during the Benedictine Hills Pilgrimage 2014.

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Every time I saw him in the hallways or outside the building after school, he would just say those same words: “If not you, who?”

The men in formation have a pumpkin carving party each year the evening before Halloween.

The Church depends on this witness, and if it has occurred to you to provide such a witness with your life, then I pass on to you the little lesson that was offered me …

If not you, who? +

Smugmug For more photos of Saint Meinrad events, visit: http://saint-meinrad.smugmug.com

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Year of Consecrated Life Monks’ Testimonials In honor of the Year of Consecrated Life, we asked several monks to give short testimonials about their experience of consecrated life in the monastic setting. Each issue of Monk Life during 2015 will feature their responses to these questions: • What does monastic life mean to you?

• What is most important to you about monastic life?

• What is it about monastic life that brings you joy?

Fr. Thomas Gricoski, OSB What does monastic life mean to me?

One of the little benefits of being a monk is that you don’t have to pick out what clothes to wear. You already made the choice of the habit a long time ago.

But the deeper meaning of this singular wardrobe is that it reflects the monk’s singular purpose.

There’s no other choice of clothing to go to choir because there is no other purpose for a monk to live except for the praise of God. That is how I interpret the consecration of a monk.

Consecrated chalices can be used only for the Eucharist. You cannot take the chalice to the dinner table. In a similar way, you cannot take the monk away from the praise of God. No matter what else the monk does, everything is directed toward his singular purpose.

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Everyone is called to praise God. And some of us are set aside and consecrated exclusively for this purpose. A monk who does not praise God needs a tune-up.

We all wear different hats throughout our lives, play different roles. But what unites all of these disparate experiences into a singular identity? The call and the choice to dedicate oneself to the praise of God puts the whole world into focus for us.

Suddenly I realize that the worship of God is not something I do only in church. Praise of God makes me who I really am, and so praise permeates everything I do. Or, at least that is the ideal, the hope we strive toward.

When the people of God consecrate some object or some person to a sacred purpose, God perfects this election by making that one shine with a singular light. The monk who praises God in all his deeds shines with the joy of one who fits into his place perfectly.

Br. Stephen Lawson, OSB Saint Anselm Abbey, Manchester, NH There is a popular parable of three stonecutters who were asked what they were doing. The first stonecutter replied, “I am making a living.” The second kept on cutting the stone and said, “I am doing the best job of stonecutting in the entire country.” The third one looked up and said, “I am building a cathedral.”

While this story is often used in business management classes, I am drawn to it as a description of monastic life. While the third stonecutter should be the ideal we hold up, often we feel like the first or second stonecutter.

On some days, the Divine Office can feel like a job you are rushing to get done. Other days we are so focused we miss the bigger picture, but we are always drawn to the

ideal. I might be in the middle of writing a paper or studying for a test, when I will hear the tower bells ring and think to myself, “If I only had an extra 30 minutes!”

It is at these moments that monastic life can be its most fulfilling. Even in our busiest and most stressful moments, we turn to the Divine Office to direct our minds and souls back toward God. If you look closely at a cathedral, you will notice that no two stones are exactly alike; each is slightly different from the next. In a similar way, in a monastic community, no two monks are alike; yet the community is attempting to build a cathedral that is worthy of God. For me, that is the meaning of monastic life: a group of imperfect individuals working as one to shape our souls.

to the Rule – by listening with the ear of the heart to the voice of the Lord while at prayer, at work, or while interacting with the community.

This listening involves reflecting upon (rather than simply reacting to the “surface” occurrences of life) such questions as: What is God saying to me through this? Why does this situation or person make me feel this way? What can I learn from this situation or person?

How can I change? What fruit might this produce?

All human beings are in need of such interior self-examination. The

unexamined life is not worth living, as the saying goes. Monks, however, are called to this in a more particular and intense fashion – and not only for their own benefit. They serve as witnesses, evangelists and intercessors for a world that thirsts for transcendence, yet is often too confused, uncertain or frightened to peek beneath the surface of things.

In the long run, this interior aspect of monastic life should lead to a giving – and forgiving – disposition rooted in the love of Christ, the Grain of Wheat who fell into the earth and died in order to sprout new life and produce much fruit (cf. John 12:24). +

Br. Francis Wagner, OSB

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Ideally, the monk should ponder this at many different points along his journey. I have discovered that the answer continually changes over time – just as the mystery of the monk’s vocation continues to unfold and deepen.

A monk prostrates himself as a burial cloth is placed over him during his solemn profession.

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What does monastic life mean to me?

Br. Stephen Lawson, OSB, (center) a monk of Saint Anselm Abbey, Manchester, NH, professed solemn vows last July. Br. William Sprauer (left) and Br. David N’Djam were in attendance.

For me, at this point (I entered the monastery in 2006), monastic life is primarily about digging beneath the surface of life. In his Rule, St. Benedict says that whether the newcomer “truly seeks God” (RB 58:7) is of primary importance.

The monk does this – as Benedict explains so poetically in the Prologue

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MONK SPOTLIGHT Br. André DeDecker, OSB

I am the youngest of seven, and I have six older brothers. My family background is a little unique because both of my parents were previously married. My Mom had four sons from her first marriage and my Dad had two sons from his first marriage. They married in 1970, and I was born on February 23, 1977, and I am the only child from their marriage.

With six half-brothers who were significantly older than me, I grew up basically as an only child because by the time I was 3 or 4 years old, they had all moved out either starting families of their own or going to college and beginning their careers.

I was born in the small northwest Illinois town of Geneseo with a population of 6,500, and I grew up in the even-smaller town of Atkinson with a population of 850. Atkinson and the surrounding areas are small farming communities with very rich Belgium, Swiss, German and Irish heritages.

Q. What is your education history?

I graduated from Geneseo High School in 1995. That summer I was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Peoria and was sent to study at Immaculate Heart of Mary 6

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Q. What is some of your background information?

Where and when were you born? Where did you grow up?

Br. André and his parents pose for a photo in the Archabbey Church.

college seminary in Winona, Minnesota. The seminary is located on the campus of St. Mary’s University.

While St. Mary’s is run by the Christian Brothers, the seminary is owned and operated by the Diocese of Winona and all classes are taken at St. Mary’s. Toward the end of that school year, I came to the realization that I was not called to the diocesan priesthood, and I decided to leave and return home.

Q. What is your prior work/life experience?

After leaving the seminary, I started working for my Dad and uncle in the family plumbing, heating and cooling business, which was started by my grandfather in 1945 and is still going strong today. However, after about a year of trying this, I came to the realization that I was not meant for the plumbing business.

After my plumbing adventure, I worked in the home improvement retail business for five years, and in March of 2001, I became a longdistance truck driver. I drove a truck until 2013, and during those 12 years I made it to the 48 continental states.

I am glad for all of the different life experiences that trucking provided me with, but it was never something I enjoyed doing for a living. It was nothing more than a job for me.

With that being said, it provided me with a fairly comfortable lifestyle. I bought a house in 2004, but one of the many downfalls of long-distance truck driving is I was rarely home long enough to enjoy my house, family or friends.

In 2012 at 35 years old, I came to the conclusion that I needed to look at where my life was going. After a lot of prayer and soul searching, I

With the guidance of my pastor and my spiritual director at the time, I was introduced to religious life. I knew from the beginning of rediscovering my calling that I was not being called to the diocesan priesthood. After researching religious life, I did not feel that I was being called to be a religious priest either, but rather I felt that God was calling me to be a religious brother.

My spiritual director was a Benedictine priest, and he encouraged me to look at several different communities. I looked very seriously at the Franciscans and the Benedictines. My spiritual director was a monk at St. Bede Abbey in Peru, IL, and I looked at them initially, but I did not feel that I was being called there. After looking into the Franciscans, I decided to look seriously into monastic life.

I was somewhat familiar with Saint Meinrad because, during my time as a seminarian, the Diocese of Peoria was sending some guys here for theology. Of course, my spiritual director was familiar with Saint Meinrad and he highly recommended that I come for a visit. I came for my first visit in April of 2012, and I knew I had found the place that God was asking me to find from the very moment I got here.

Q. Describe your current work for the monastery.

Currently, I work in the Archabbey kitchen assisting them with cooking and other food preparations. I have

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came back to the full practice of my faith after several years away, and once again I started to get the feeling that God was still calling me to service in the Church.

Archabbot Justin DuVall gives Br. AndrĂŠ the sign of peace after professing his vows.

always loved to cook. By being assigned to the kitchen, I truly get to do the work I love every day.

Recently, in addition to my work in the kitchen, I have been appointed

by Archabbot Justin as assistant master of ceremonies.

I will be pursuing a culinary arts degree starting in January at Sullivan University in Louisville, KY. I am really looking forward to my upcoming studies. By gaining this professional training as a chef, I can’t wait until I am able to bring back those skills to Saint Meinrad.

Q. What are some of your hobbies? What do you like to do in your free time?

I have several hobbies that I enjoy, and I would have to say the one that I love the most and the one that I think the monks appreciate the most is my love for baking. I love to bake bread, and I also enjoy baking cookies and other kinds of sweet treats. When time allows, I try to make fresh bread for dinner once or twice a week. I also try to treat the brethren to cookies or brownies on Sunday night.

I also enjoy flower gardening and landscaping, and I am the caretaker of the St. Joseph Shrine.

I also enjoy making rosaries and I even offer some for sale in the gift shop from time to time. In addition to all of this, I am a huge University of Illinois Fighting Illini football and basketball fan, as well as a Chicago Bears fan, so fall is definitely my favorite time of the year.

Q. What attracted you to monastic life?

Several things attracted me to the monastic life. I think the biggest thing for me was that personal prayer, spiritual growth and especially community prayer are the primary focus of Benedictine monastic life.

These are the most important and most appealing parts of this life.

Everything else in monastic life comes second to prayer.

While we take a vow of stability to this particular monastery, many things about this life can change, most especially our work, but the one thing that will never change is our commitment to prayer and the daily schedule that guides us.

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that is to grow closer to Jesus Christ and to serve Him and His Church as best as they can in the life of monastic discipleship He has called us to.

The monks of Saint Meinrad are unique in their own ways, and they are also humble, loving and prayerful men trying to live this life as best as they can, as a community and individually.

Master of Ceremonies, Fr. Prior Kurt Stasiak, patiently awaits the beginning of liturgy.

Another important thing that attracted me to monastic life was that a college education is not a requirement to come here and serve Jesus and his Church.

When I began to gain a greater understanding of the life of a Benedictine brother, I knew I had found what it was that God was calling me to do with my life. While I love to learn and gain knowledge, I do not and have never enjoyed school. I felt that God was simply asking me to live a life in the model of St. Joseph and that of my holy patron, St. André Bessette, CSC, and that is to serve Him as a simple, humble, devoted servant in His vineyard.

Q. What are some of the challenges and rewards that come with monastic life?

For me, the greatest challenge and one of the biggest rewards that come with monastic life are the brothers with whom I share this life. I love, honor and respect all of them, but no matter what profession that a person may choose, you will most likely run across some people who rub you the wrong way.

My life prior to coming to the monastery was one that allowed me 8

to spend a great deal of my time alone. I worked alone and I lived alone. So, needless to say, the biggest adjustment I had to face coming to the monastery was learning to live with 70 other people who range in age from 22 to 96, and this has not always been easy for me.

Listen to what your heart is telling you, and place all of your trust in Jesus Christ because He will never let you down. Also, if you don’t already have a spiritual director, find one you feel comfortable with.

When you do find a spiritual director, be honest with him or her and they will take you the rest of the way if you let them. +

However, these 70 other men also provide me with the greatest joy, because they help me to truly live and appreciate the vows of obedience, stability and conversion of my life to the monastic way of life. The men with whom I share this life every day are a continuous witness of what it means to be a Benedictine monk in 21stcentury America.

What I have been able to discover about these men is that, while some may hold several higher learning degrees and a few did not graduate from high school, they all have one common goal and

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Q. What advice would you give to those considering a monastic vocation?

Archabbot Justin DuVall processes into Church for Br. André’s first profession of vows.

Benedictine Perspectives: Living a Life of Prayer

By Fr. Mark O’Keefe, OSB St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th-century Spanish mystic and Doctor of the Church, offers a classic definition of prayer: “an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” By unfolding this rich definition, we can come to a better sense of the life of prayer for all Christians, and for Benedictines in particular.

Prayer is, first of all, like a conversation. We talk to God as to a friend. The other part of this interpersonal exchange with God, often neglected but equally important, is that we listen. We try both to express and reveal ourselves as we are and to be attentive and open to God’s presence and word.

or in wonder. Deepening prayer means a more intimate sharing that is, from time to time, increasingly, a more profound and silent sharing.

Prayer, then, is grounded in a friendship with God – a relationship that must grow outside moments of prayer by our efforts to learn of God, especially as revealed in Christ in the Scriptures, as well as by our endeavor to see others and the world as God does, to act as God does and as God wills, and to love as God has loved us in Christ.

Prayer is a relationship, and it is a sharing that must become a life of prayer.

Prayer is “frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”

Note that St. Teresa is telling us that prayer requires times of solitude, away from the noise and distractions of our ordinary lives.

But note, too, that our friendship

with God and our intimate sharing are rooted in our coming to know that God is truly the One who loves us.

Divine friendship and prayer can only begin with the Good News that God loves sinners – that God loves this sinner, as I am. It is God who first seeks and initiates this friendship, and it is God who makes it possible. In prayer, our understanding and embrace of this Good News of God’s love grows. And, as our confidence in the divine love deepens, we discover the invitation to grow still deeper in prayer and in still more intimate communion with our God. The Benedictine monastic life reminds us that our friendship with God is shared with others in community. Our prayer is always personal, and we all need times of personal prayer in solitude. But, as Christians, our prayer is, at the same time, always a prayer shared in the Church, which is the Body of Christ.

The God who loves me and invites me into intimate sharing is inviting those around me; and, unlike us, God is able to attend to each of us individually and intimately, even as

There can be a precious, silent sharing between friends, as when they stand together in grief, in joy

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But note that St. Teresa speaks of something more fundamental than conversation. Prayer is an “intimate sharing” between friends.

Conversation, of course, is an important part of such sharing. But friends share time. They share experiences. They share a bond.

The intimacy between close friends runs deeper than occasional, oral conversation.

Fr. Mark O’Keefe prays during Mass in the monastic choir.

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God attends in the same way to those around us. The Eucharist is the perfect manifestation in this life of both our deeply personal communion with Christ and our sharing in that communion with those around us, present or scattered across the world, on earth and in heaven.

The monastery, like a Christian family of faith, is a domestic church. It is a local realization of the universal Church. In the monastic community, brothers in faith gather regularly each day as a family to pray, to praise, to adore and to intercede for the world.

At the same time, the monastic structure and rhythm of the daily schedule provide and encourage the

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solitude and silence that is essential to our personal, intimate sharing with the God who we know loves us.

Lectio divina, holy reading especially of the Scriptures, helps us to grow in our knowledge and our love of the God who has first loved us. The daily living together and the work train us to see as God sees, to do as God wills, and to love as God loves through our daily encounter with these brothers with whom God unites us in the bond of monastic fellowship.

An intimate sharing with God in friendship is the amazing divine invitation to all people. The

monastic call is a special gift from God that provides the structure, the encouragement, and the support to grow in this friendship with God within a community of brothers and within a long and proven tradition of prayer and of holiness. + Clockwise from top left: Monks celebrate Mass in the Archabbey Church.

Fr. Thomas Gricoski speaks at Monte Cassino Shrine.

Fall colors decorate the campus during October.

Candidate Jonathan Blaize entertains at the Halloween party.

Ministry Spotlight: The Ministry of Abbot

By Archabbot Justin DuVall, OSB In our day, many forms of service in the Church are called ministries, from those who serve as greeters at the doors of the church to the priest who stands at the altar to preside at Sunday Mass. While the word “ministry” appears in the Rule of St. Benedict only infrequently in reference to very ordinary, menial tasks, the Rule generally refrains from using the word in reference to the abbot.

The Rule does use a word to describe the duties, both ordinary and formal, of several other important positions in the community, and that word is officium, or in English, office.

Although the word is not used in reference to the abbot, the Benedictine monastic tradition has come to apply it to the abbot. And so we commonly speak of the office of abbot. In this sense, it is similar to the way we speak of someone who holds public office.

Within the monastic context, the abbot “is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery” (RB 2.2).

In exercising his office, the abbot should always “recognize that his goal must be profit for the monks, not preeminence for himself” (RB 64.7).

In speaking of the abbot’s responsibilities and duties, St. Benedict is careful to remind him frequently of the account he must give to God of how he has carried out those duties. With this admonition in mind, there are a few things we can say about the office of abbot.

First, it is an office that is entrusted to the abbot. The community elects him to this office and, in so doing, must consciously and deliberately choose the one who will be worthy of their trust.

The Rule says that the one to be placed in office should be chosen for his “goodness of life and wisdom in teaching,” even if he is the last in community rank (RB 64.2).

So the office of abbot is something that is handed on, not something that is deliberately sought. Every abbot will bring his particular gifts and person to the office, but the community chooses him for this office; he does not run for it on his own merits. It is entrusted to him.

Secondly, the office of abbot is accepted by the one chosen. He must explicitly agree to undertake its responsibilities and duties and in faith to “hold the place of Christ in the monastery.” For the one chosen abbot, the office entails an act of obedience.

Here Christ himself is the model, whose own obedience unto death was for the sake of those whom he came to save.

Just as Christ freely accepted the will of the Father, as God’s Chosen One, and then freely carried it out in His life of loving service, so the abbot freely accepts the will of the community for him to hold the place of Christ. He will do this best by his own obedience to God, to the Rule, and to whatever particular demands the office of abbot place on him at any given time. The office of abbot is something he freely accepted, and with that acceptance come consequences, not only for the monks he serves, but for his own salvation as well.

Lastly, then, this office is meant to be exercised. Once it has been entrusted

and accepted, the office of abbot is an ordinary means by which the daily life of the monastery is governed and cherished. As noted above, the abbot is not to seek preeminence for himself, but advancement in the monastic life for his monks.

His wisdom in teaching, one of the qualities for choosing an abbot, finds expression in the way he governs the community that has entrusted him with the office. Drawing on this wisdom, “he must so arrange everything that the strong have something to yearn for and the weak nothing to run from” (RB 64.19). This is a tall order, but one that the abbot carries out in love, adapting his approach to the different temperaments of his monks.

The good order of the community is his responsibility and, in working to establish it, he has to consider both the strong and the weak, rather than some abstract principle of good management. In this way, he will exercise the office of abbot for the good of the whole house.

While no particular responsibility of the office of abbot is called a ministry, the Rule does use the word a single time in regard to the abbot.

After admonishing him to “keep this rule in every particular,” it tells him that “when he has ministered well he will hear from the Lord what the good servant heard who gave his fellow servants grain at the proper time: I tell you solemnly…he sets him over all his possessions” (RB 64.2022). The whole of his life is therefore a service, a ministry, carried out in response to the office entrusted to him. It is the way he holds the place of Christ in the monastery. + 11

Interested in the Monastic Life at Saint Meinrad Archabbey?

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S I PRAY, REveal to me your way for me to you, lord god.

Amen