Contrary to the projections often sent in our direction, the monastic life is no ideal state, freed from the conflicts that everyone else in life faces, and I do my best not to hide either the joys or the trials of our life in this column. These two brothers were greatly talented and marvelously accomplished human beings and many people were genuinely transformed by their ministries. They also had lives that were deeply marked with hostility, anger and chaos, and both they and the community bore those marks as well. All of this we carried through the days of their dying and as we sang the Office of the Dead for each of them, and we carried their lives, and ours, to the altar at the Requiem Eucharists for them. Michael's funeral was done here at West Park in the presence of his community. Bernard's funeral will be July 14 in Santa Barbara. The ashes of both of these brothers will be laid to rest in the columbarium here at West Park where most of the departed members of our community rest. And of course stories will be told about them for many, many years.
May they rest in peace, and rise in glory. (source)
Every day (except on the community's sabbath day--Monday) the community at Holy Cross gathers for a "Chapter" Meeting to discuss house business and various other things that concern the community. One of the traditions at Holy Cross is to remember departed Brothers by reading his obituary at Chapter on the anniversaries of his death. These obituaries are honest and graceful in the same spirit as Bede's writing about Michael and Bernard. Originally the idea, I'm told, was to help newer members of the Order learn about the personalities of the men who went before them. But the tradition is really much powerful than that, I think, because it models a kind of honesty and charity towards people. We remember them as they were, not as we wished them to be.
This can be disturbing. Some might call it baring the dirty laundry, but I think that this is short sighted. The best way to honor the dead is to remember them accurately. Otherwise we are just spinning myths to suit our needs.
-t
1 comment:
Fr. Tay, I wish anyone who read the blog comments about Br. Michael had known him as long (very intermittently) as I did. I just turned 50, and it seems odd that it was in high school in the 70's that I met him, doing Vacation Bible School sessions in the Seattle area, and at summer camp. He may have had some difficulties in his community, but it surprises me alot that monastics *mention* it. This is a family, and one doesn't expect perfect people unless one has a very unusual delusion about them. Having said that, I hope you knew Br. Michael's humor! He was a one-armed organist, and he told me once about having to drag out a hymn rather longer than it ought to have gone at a feast day in the monastery..The procession with a censor had gone out one door of the chapel, and was expected to go down the hall parallel to it and re-enter via the door at the other end. It took so long he finally stopped playing to go take a look. The Thurifer had swung the thing so widely he had looped the chain around an overhead beam, and everyone was standing under it watching it sway and wondering how to retrieve it. Or how the kids at a summer camp were concerned that he might be unable to swim with them? Relax, he said, I just swim in circles. It was said he would wait til a motion was about to be decided by "raising the right hand"
in the community, at which point he would object that this was unfair... I know an Anglican priest whose first memory of him was seeing him bound to a tree by a hoard of kids at a camp, as he laughed uproariously. "Ah, the little children...God's chosen...May He take them to His bosom....QUICKLY!" He would say in a deep, dramatic voice. Hey, you got any *more* angry, imperfect men like him? You could use them. May the Lord remember him in His Kingdom with all His saints.
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