A Monk's Diary

Crossing Monastery Road in the dark this morning, at about 4:30 a.m., my eyes are drawn up the driveway of Holy Family Church which rises to a crest upon which the church is set with its proud little steeple. I see the facade barely illumined by a single street lamp on the drive way at the base of the front steps. I am exhilarated but that is only a surface emotion. There is stillness, a seemingly infinite stillness beneath my rapid breathing and the pleasant sensation of my arms swinging in the early morning air. My body is being exercised and sings of its release from the heaviness of sleep, but my mind is quiet. As my eyes survey the vague forms just becoming visible in the light of the approaching dawn, everything speaks; every sight absorbs me. The humble red brick structure of the church speaks to me most eloquently. It seems alive with the presence of the families who worship there; the quiet rather serious young priest who serves them. The kid who I see on the riding mower on week-ends wearing his I-pod and zipping around the gravestones seemingly unaware that I can hear him singing, even over the roar of the lawn mower, and from a hundred feet away – his ghost is there. I don't know the people of Holy Family parish. They only come on Saturday evening, and Sunday morning when the monks are at prayer in our cloister across the street. Only some of them ever migrate over for mass or prayer services and actually have a conversation with a monk. I walk the grounds of Holy Family twice a day, once after mass and then again after Vespers – and then sometimes, before dawn as I am now. At these times, there isn't a soul in sight. The church stands empty and solitary. All this makes my relationship with the parishoners rather mysterious. Once in a while, as I'm walking, a mother with some kids in a minivan, making a quick stop at the church to run an errand, will pass me, walking under the trees that line the driveway, with my hood up, meditating on a sermon from St. Bernard. Glancing up, I'll catch the face of a child looking at me with wide eyes through the milky glass, his whole face one undisguised expression of bewilderment: “What the heck is that?” I give him a little wave and return to my thoughts. At 4:40 in the morning, the driveway is silent. But I am thinking of that child, hoping he is sleeping soundly, praying that life will not introduce him to it's harsher realities too soon; feeling a little like a ten year old myself as my heart is ravished by the beauty of a day being born – as if I had never seen it before.