Our Bro. Placido, a Junior monk, was a practicing lawyer in Chicago before entering New Melleray Abbey in 2007, and studied Constitutional Law with Barack Obama at the University of Chicago in 2000. He is very intelligent and, immersed now in the study of philosophy, is impressing his teachers at St. John's Seminary in Collegeville. As a practicing lawyer, Placido ministered to orphans and used his legal expertise to find them happy and secure foster homes. He was good at what he did, combining legal skills with an intuitive insight into people's hidden motivations. A candidate who spent time with us was beginning to manifest some odd behaviors after several months in the cloister. Placido told me one day: "Father, he was abused." Over a year later, in a conversation with a therapist, some blockage in this candidate's psyche worked itself free and let loose a flood of memories till he heard himself say: "I was abused"—though he told me it seemed to him someone else was saying it. Placido had been right. No doubt, with his talents, Placido could be accomplishing important things in the world. I don't doubt that children made vulnerable by the loss of their parents would have been blessed by the ministry of this intelligent and caring man. How odd it was to encounter him as I did tonight. On my way to Vespers, I nearly tripped over him as he stood bent over in the evening shadows, leaning against the arched doorway of the sacristy. It was a curious sight—a man bent over like that, his face nearly at his knees, concentrating intently on something near his feet. When I realized what he was doing, I felt a curious mixture of alarm and affection for him. The object of his intense concentration at that moment was the cuffs of his blue jeans. He had cooked that afternoon and was wearing grungy work pants under his habit. Several days earlier I had been obliged to correct him about the appearance of his baggy jeans heaped up on top of his shoes beneath his religious habit. It was the abbot who pointed it out to me and so I had to say something to Placido. He accepted the correction gracefully, but was clearly surprised and had not considered this to be of any importance. The liturgy at New Melleray is well executed and rather formal. A certain decorum in dress and behavior is part of the culture of our community, and—well, the baggy jeans weren't cutting it. This afternoon he had been cooking, hadn't had time to change his pants, and, evidently, just before walking into church for Vespers, had remembered the correction. Now, finding him folded in half in the shadows, so intent upon the humble and humbling task of rolling up his cuffs, I loved him and was touched by this sign of a life being laid down in a hidden act of obedience.

Father Raphael