My Friend Came To Visit

This is Jeremy Driscoll. I love him. And I love his face.



Jeremy is a monk of Mt. Angel Abbey. He is also a priest. Ordination to the priesthood does not occur automatically with monks. In fact, in the old days even the Abbott wasn't normally ordained. St. Benedict of Nursia was born in 480 A.D. and is considered the founder of western cenobitic monastacism. The Greeks booked out their own form prior to Benedict. Prior. Get it? You might have to be--or have been--a monk to get THAT little joke. The Abbott would just have one of the monks kneel before a bishop for the laying on of hands so that the community could celebrate the liturgy of the eucharist without having to dial for a rent-a-priest from the diocese.

Monastic life is a calling. Sort of like being a doctor or an attorney or a writer or a police officer. Being a priest and a monk is regarded as a vocation within a vocation. Priesthood is secondary to that of responding to the call of being a monk. But here's a little bit about monasticism that most folks are not aware of:

There is no such thing as a vow of silence. Never has been. Never will be. I suppose some cultist could come up with such a thing. But the thought of such is just pure silliness. As with most cult tenets.

Monks live the cenobitic life. That means they live together in a community. In very rare cases, a monk may petition the Abbott to set off in a discipline known as the eremetical life. "Eremos," in Greek means desert. Only a monk who has done very well living within the contexts of community has a shot at becoming a hermit. Hermits are still joined to their community and in most cases it is insisted that he or she attend some community functions, especially Chapter. Chapter is where all the solemnly professed monks gather to vote on matters of various importance relative to the functioning of the house.

Monks take three vows: Stability, Obedience and Conversion of Life. They do not take Poverty, Chastity and Obedience as is often thought. No. Not so. Mendicants do that. A mendicant belongs to an order such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians. These are not monks. These are mendicants. The word comes from the Latin meaning "to beg." The word "monk" derives its meaning from the Greek "mono," hinting at singleness or aloneness. But the monastic life has very little to do with going solo. It is all about being purged in the fire of community that one becomes holy.

The vow of Obedience literally means to "incline one's ear," to "listen up," to "pay attention." Ob-audire. Audio. Audience. Obedience. Get it? This concept is key to the beginning of St. Benedict's Holy Rule For Monks and you see it in the opening lines of the Prologue. If you go to the link, there follows a commentary by Father Philip Lawrence, OSB (Order of Saint Benedict). He is currently the Abbott of Christ in the Desert near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Phillip is also a former monk of Mt. Angel Abbey.

The vow of Conversion of Life embraces both poverty and chastiy. The latter is necessary to the function of celibacy. And it is celibacy which permits one to cleave to no single person other than God. It's a concept that has been lived out by millions of people over thousands of years. And not just Christians. The practice of celibacy predates any known manifestation of even the earliest far eastern philosophies. There are just some people who are called to be "set apart" for the sake of walking with the Creator. Even if there were a married clergy in the Roman Church, there will always be those who are called to celibacy. Many people are chaste. But that does not make them celibate. Celibacy is a way of life, a conceptual framework flowing from a sense of having been called and having responded to that call. People always ask me why I left the monastic life. Truthfully, I'm not sure what happened. It is much easier to answer why I entered and why I stayed as long as I did.

Besides cenobitic and eremetic monks (hermits), there are the anchorites. Julian of Norwich (not canonized, and so not a saint, but a terrific mystic of the 14th Century) was an anchorite. Julian speaks of Jesus as "the Mother of mercy." Anchorites literally anchored themselves to a church and in some cases were walled up and unable to leave their cell. But not so the cenobite, not so.

The vow of Stability refers to the monk's resolve to make vows to a particular community. That is the family he will live with until he dies. There is no putting in for a transfer. Jeremy teaches theology half the year in Rome. But he always comes home to his community and that will never change.

It was good to be able to spend some time with him. We took a walk along the edge of Yaquina Bay:

You will recognize the pintails and wigeon in this one...



The large birds are geese. Black Brandt. The others are wigeon...



Here's what's going on here: About five years ago, I was headed out to the flats at low tide to harvest some Upogebia pugettensis for a planned sturgeon fishing trip the next day. I happened to glance up at a seagull flying overhead and carrying an object in its mouth. I watched the bird as it crossed the flats and when it reached the beach, it was as if it put the brakes on and almost came to a dead hover. It climbed about 10 feet and then began a descent. As it did so, it released the object which landed on the beach with a thud. The bird quickly landed and reclaimed its object whereupon it repeated the action. I realized that the bird had picked up a cockle and was cracking it open. I have lived here since 1981 and had never noticed this activity. It's as though the birds have learned this trick in the last 10 years or so. This is a picture of the increased sophistication they've achieved. One of them tried it on a roof. Apparently, a fad was begun. Can you imagine working inside this building and hearing the bombardments?...



Jeremy's most recent books are What Happens At Mass and A Monk's Alphabet.

I miss him already...