If you're going to interpret the Rule of St. Benedict strictly, Bro. Edward shouldn't be telling me this story at all. Though a monk may need to leave the monastery from time to time to take care of some necessity, St. Benedict insisted that, when he returns, he shouldn't speak to his brothers about the interesting experiences he had in town which could cause their thoughts to stray. I guess you could say, in this conversation Edward is breaking the rules. The basic facts are that Edward left the monastery one day when he was about 38 years old, befriended and fell in love with a woman, later got dispensed from his vows, married the woman, lived with her for twenty years, endured a tense and complicated relationship with her two children, sat helplessly at her bedside as she died of cancer, and then returned to monastic life, and, in his early sixties, after an extended period of probation, took vows again which bound him to the monastic way of life till death. Aware that Edward and I may not be observing the Rule perfectly at this moment, I let him speak. Edward is now in his eighties and will tell you that the last twenty years of his monastic life have been the happiest of all. He loves being a monk. Sitting a little slumped in his chair, his head bowed, he is meditative as our conversation turns to recollections of his early days as a monk — before he married the woman in Dubuque. Maybe, on this day, at the beginning of the Spring thaw with all nature dripping under the caress of a benevolent sun, a monk who was happily married for twenty years can be forgiven for sharing a few reminiscences. He is not sparing me the details. The problem, as he sees it, was that, as a young monk, he got too busy. He enjoyed the work setting up the "de-hy" plant where the monks produced and sold alfalfa pellets. With time, however, he lost himself in work, his life got out of balance, and he neglected prayer. Eventually, he lost all sense of his original purpose for joining the monastery. The woman he met in town was attractive, a young widow, and she had money. Her kids were spoiled and a little snotty, but the couple was deeply in love, well suited to one another, and were happily married for twenty years. There is little room for boasting in a story like this. As Edward speaks, his voice is hushed, his manner hesitant as though the whole incredible narrative were something he himself was hearing for the first time and trying to figure out. He keeps wagging his head as though incredulous and shares extended passages of the story with his eyes closed. It seems what finally convinced him of his monastic vocation was the way she died. The cancer that was consuming her took its time and there was little anyone could do. Edward, having never experienced or imagined a situation like this, found himself sitting for hours and days and weeks beside his wife's bed, the minutes unfolding in an ever-changing spectrum of pain and awe. At her funeral, emotionally and physically wasted, he said to God: "I could never do this again." And, of course, he never will. On the day a monk makes his Solemn Vows to God, he raises his voice to heaven and sings two lines from a psalm: the first line is a passionate avowal of trust: "Receive me O Lord and I shall live!". In the second line a note of hesitancy enters in . . . "Do not confound me in my expectations!" No monk knows the future. Bro. Edward, sitting in front of me weary and grateful, is proof that he doesn't need to. God is good.

Father Raphael